Video shows moment police stopped 9-year-old joyrider heading to California beach with toddler sister
The car driven by the nine-year-old girl in Utah crashed into a lorry
(Screengrab/West Valley City Police Department video )Utah police have shared a video of the moment they stopped a nine-year-old girl who drove a car into a lorry on the freeway while trying to get to the beach with her sister, a toddler.
According to the police, the “officers got quite a surprise when they responded to an accident this morning and discovered the driver was a nine-year-old girl”.
The West Valley City police department in Utah said that the young girl and her four-year-old sister apparently “snagged the keys to the family car while their parents were sleeping and set out on their own summer adventure”.
The girls drove about 10 miles from their home in West Jordan - via a highway and a freeway - “before exiting off, hopping a median and slamming head-on into a semi-truck”.
“The car suffered serious damage. Even the semi had to be towed! Thankfully, though, no one got hurt, we suspect in large part because those little girls at least remembered to wear their seatbelts!” said the police in a series of tweets.
When asked what sparked the impromptu trip, the girls told officers that they were headed to California because they wanted to "swim in the ocean”.
According to local media reports, the police estimated that the two girls secured the keys to the car and left home around 3am. They then took some time to figure out how to drive a car before they set off, and it was around 5am that the accident took place.
Officers got quite a surprise when they responded to an accident this morning & discovered the driver was a 9yo girl. The young girl & her 4yo sister apparently snagged the keys to the family car while their parents were sleeping & set out on their own summer adventure. #wvc pic.twitter.com/evHq3DiBRC
— WVC Police (@WVCPD) June 2, 2021
The parents of the girls had no idea about the whole incident and were woken up by the police telling them about the crash. They have reportedly asked the police to not disclose details of the family’s identity.
This is not the first time such an incident has taken place in Utah. In May 2020, a five-year-old boy took his family’s SUV to go to California “to buy a Lamborghini”.
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