SAND LAKE -- No charges will be filed in the case of a 4-year-old boy who drove his mom's car to the video store and back.

"He's 4 years old, his mom didn't even know he was up," Sand Lake Police Chief Doug Heugel said Saturday. "I don't think he even realizes what he did."

Heugel, who said he consulted with Kent County prosecutors, said charges are not warranted against the mother or the boy.








"He's still got 12 years to go before he can learn to drive," he said.

The boy's errant errand began at 1:30 a.m. Friday when he left the Old Mill Apartment complex and commandeered his mom's Geo Prizm, Heugel said.

While not tall enough to reach the accelerator, he put the car in gear and steered it onto Northland Drive to a video store a quarter-mile away, Heugel said.

After discovering the store was closed, the precocious pilot began a slow, weaving journey home without headlights, attracting the attention of Sand Lake police officer Jay Osga. Osga saw no driver and assumed he was following a car that had been left running at a gas pump.

When the car turned into the apartment complex and struck two parked cars, Osga turned on his lights. The boy threw the car in reverse and struck Osga's car.

Osga then discovered the boy, whose mother told officers her son tried to drive the car earlier after she allowed him to steer the vehicle from her lap.


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.....

.....okay

Beware of four-year-olds who cannot drive

LOL! Four years old and already he's crashed into three cars! EEK!

This is sad, but, my mom was really short (4'11") and had to sit on a pillow to see out through the steering wheel. She got pulled over once by a state trooper who couldn't see anyone driving.

haha, that's pretty impressive on the kid's part

Holy crap

He was probably going to get some Barney, when he couldn't get to sleep.

I had a few dreams of doing this when i was a kid.
Weird.

What a story...

The really funny part is that the kid almost made it home without incedent. I was thinking about what would have happened had he actually made it home without getting caught.

I could just imagine him trying to tell his mom that he drove to the store last night, but that it was closed...

The mom would roll her eyes and say "Oh, sure you did sweety..."

The whole time the mom would think that the little boy was having a dream, and would never believe otherwise...

It makes you wonder if there is a grain of truth to the crazy stories that kids are capable of telling from time to time.

...

It makes me wonder if there is a grain of truth to this story.

Lol! I used to have dreams of driving teh car when I was a little kid too Burnside.
What a sight that would have been!

He's a pretty smart kid, to have gotten as far as he did.

i'm suprised that simply from his mum letting him drive the car while on his lap he fully knew how to drive a car , was it a manual or an auto? (an auto i guess he could do but the odds of him driving a manual that far at that age would be low)