A Utah state trooper made a shocking discovery when he pulled over a vehicle that appeared to be driving erratically: a 5-year-old boy behind the wheel. As HuffPost reports, the young man claimed that he was on his way to California to purchase a Lamborghini.
On Monday, Trooper Rick Morgan was working his beat when he noticed a Dodge Journey SUV being driven erratically on Interstate 15 near Ogden. He said that he thought the driver might have been impaired and was possibly intoxicated or having a medical emergency.
Morgan initiated a traffic stop, only to find that the driver was neither impaired nor in medical distress. However, there was a very obvious reason for the driver not to be behind the wheel.
“It was pretty clear when the window came down that it was a young, very underage driver that was behind the wheel.”
Morgan added that the young driver was so small that he had to sit on the edge of the seat just to keep his foot on the brake while the trooper was talking to him.
After investigating further, Morgan learned that the unidentified lad had gotten into a fight with his mother after she refused to buy him a Lamborghini. So, he stole his mother’s car keys, with a view towards driving the family SUV to California to buy one on his own.
Beyond his age, there was a glaring flaw in the boy’s plan. While he only managed to make it a couple of miles, the Utah Highway Patrol noted in a tweet, “he might have been short on the purchase amount, as he only had $3 dollars in his wallet.”
One of our Troopers in Weber Co. initiated a traffic stop on what he thought was an impaired driver. Turns out it was this young man, age 5, somehow made his way up onto the freeway in his parents’ car. Made it from 17th and Lincoln in Ogden down to the 25th St off-ramp SB I-15. pic.twitter.com/3aF1g22jRB
— Utah Highway Patrol (@UTHighwayPatrol) May 4, 2020
Morgan was able to help the boy safely put the vehicle in park before tracking down his caregivers.
His teenage sister, who was supposed to have been watching him at the time of his antics, said she fell asleep, only to wake up and find him gone.
“I saw that the truck was gone, and he was gone, and the keys were gone… I don’t know what went through his mind.”
The boy’s parents say that he’s a good kid and he’d never done anything like this before.
For his part, the boy seems to have maintained a positive attitude about the experience.
“The police told me I drive good.”
This isn’t the first time a child has decided to go joyriding in Utah . Back in 2009, as Fox News reports, a 7-year-old boy didn’t want to go to church and instead took his parents’ car on a joyride.