This is a pretty remarkable story for a number of reasons: perhaps most obviously is that the kid in this picture seems really damn big for a five-year-old, and also because of the reason the kid was driving a car in the first place, which was to buy a Lamborghini. I’m glad no one was hurt, but, beyond that, I’ve got a lot of complicated and conflicting feelings here.
Here’s the tweet from the Utah Highway Patrol that introduced us to this half-decade-old driver:
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
So, lots to process here. First, the Utah Highway Patrol should maybe consider a face-obscuring system that looks a big less like a horrific, yawning chasm on your head, because that’s just kind of disturbing.
Next, as someone who owned and operated a height/weight 50th-percentile-ish five-year-old kid for about a year, I have to say that is one large five-year-old. I don’t think my kid would have been able to touch the pedals or see over the dash, but this fella sure could, and managed to drive for a pretty good distance.
I mean, he’s clearly a kid, I’m just not sure I’ve ever seen a kindergartner quite that tall. Or skilled at driving.
Then, the story gets richer with this follow-up tweet:
His story is that he left home after an argument with Mom, in which she told him she would not buy him a Lamborghini. He decided he’d take the car and go to California to buy one himself. He might have been short on the purchase amount, as he only had $3 dollars in his wallet.
— Utah Highway Patrol (@UTHighwayPatrol) May 4, 2020
Gotta appreciate this kid’s gearhead ambitions, right? Wanted a Lambo, so figured out how to drive his mum’s car to go find one, somewhere? And, he’s a kid, don’t laugh at the $5 he was planning to spend. In kid money-scales, that feels like Lambo-money, I’d say.
Lots of interesting questions here. I want to know how the kid figured out how to drive as well as he did, most of all, and I wouldn’t mind some confirmation on the age.
Still, I do hope this kid gets his Lambo one day, ideally by investing those three dollars into some lucrative stock or something like that.