8-year-old takes parents' SUV for a joyride

An amusing story from TVNZ this morning is below. Some may remember those awful Hyundai TV commercials a few years ago featuring a kid doing just that (only screened in NZ, the Advertising Standards Bureau of Australia banned it.) A case of what you sow...?

An 8-year-old boy has been caught driving his parents' car around Wellington this morning.
The boy clipped a number of cars in the inner city before he was stopped in a hotel car park by a ONE News reporter just before 5am.

ONE News reporter Lucas De Jong said he was following behind the car and it had been swerving over the road.  De Jong said that he thought the driver of the red SUV had been drinking when he saw it clip a white parked car.

He said the driver pulled over and De Jong blocked the car in at the James Cook Hotel. The boy emerged from the car wearing Ben 10 pyjamas and was teary and apologetic. The boy told De Jong he did not want to be at home and had taken his parents' keys. The 8-year-old claimed he knew how to drive and revealed that he had been driving for around five to ten minutes and had hit more than one car on his trip.

Police arrived at the scene and were shocked to discover the boy had been driving. Police said the boy could not charged due to his age, but that his parents would be liable for any damage to cars.
The 8-year-old's parents had already contacted police looking for the boy.

De Jong said it was a "very bizarre thing to see" and there was minimal damage to the SUV. He said the boy was short and had been hunched over the steering wheel with his feet just touching the pedals.