Grabbing a few extra minutes of sleep in the morning is usually pretty harmless, that is unless you have a very sneaky preschooler on your hands who simply can't resist getting into a little mischief.
And one mom in Sweden got the shock of her life when her 4-year-old son stole her car keys as she slept and went for a drive without her knowing. Holy moly -- how in the heck did he manage to snag those keys? Well, his mom says, "I had the car keys in my jacket pocket and it was hanging so high that I thought he couldn’t reach it. But he did. Don’t ask me how, I was asleep."
And the kid in question is one seriously resourceful 4-year-old, because he not only got into the car, started it, and drove away from the house -- but he managed to make three right turns and traveled almost half a kilometer.
He ultimately crashed the car into a pickup truck, which ended his little joy ride, and that's when a local shopkeeper escorted the boy back to his house, rang the door bell -- and explained to his mom that he'd been out for a cruise.
And aside from being absolutely shocked, her reaction was nothing short of priceless. She told the local newspaper, "I have no idea how he managed, he’s never driven a car before."
Well, DUH! What 4-year-old child has ever driven a car before?! (If you know one, you might want to think about reporting the parents.)
While a toddler getting behind the wheel of the vehicle is very serious, not to mention dangerous, you have to admit that it's hard not to chuckle a little bit at the thought of this kid going out for a spin. I wonder what was going through his head that morning? Something like, "Hey, my mom's still asleep. Now I can finally hop in the car and cruise for chicks." (Too far-fetched?)
Thankfully, this little guy was unharmed during his brief time on the road, and I'm sure his mom will do a much better job of hiding her keys from here on out. Actually, this story should serve as a great reminder to other moms of just how sneaky little ones can be -- so it's best to keep things like keys as far out of arm's reach as possible.
Do you think your child would ever do something like this?
Image via Jami3.org/Flickr
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Comments 19
The mechanics of driving aren't hard. Any preschooler who can see his Mom or Dad drive from his booster seat could probably turn on the ignition and take the thing out of park. Though most kids probably would have panicked once the car started moving. He was probably standing rather than sitting to drive, leaning back holding onto the steering wheel, which would account for him being able to make a simple right turn with presumably no other cars coming (the article mentions it was early morning), but eventually crashing as he did not have as much control over the steering wheel as a sitting person or an adult would and he could probably barely see over the dashboard. I'd also wager this is a rather small car. He probably would have crashed an SUV before going 500 meters. The police investigated and found no foul play. I get Mom will be hiding her keys from now on and Junior has gotten a nice punishment.
If the car was in drive, and he didn't have to back up to get out of the drive way, he very easily could have done this whole adventure without ever needing the gas pedal. Most cars in drive move forward by themselves.
my almsot 3 year old son who is devlopmenaly delayed could do that. when we go to my folks place they have to take the keys out the riding lawn mower and atv and motorcyle he can start all three and put 2 out of 3 into gear. so an automatic car would not be hard