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Utah Boy, 8, Takes Sis, 5, on Joyride

Neither sibling harmed in late-night crash
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 16, 2012 5:37 AM CDT
Utah Boy, 8, Takes Sis, 5, on Joyride
Kid, this is what happens when you take the family minivan for a spin.   (AP Photo/Ogden Police Department)

An 8-year-old Utah boy and his 5-year-old sister were unharmed after crashing the family minivan on an ill-fated late-night trip to the store. Cops say the boy—who made sure he and his sister buckled up before setting out on their midnight mission—barely made it out of the driveway, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. "They had just come out of the driveway, went across both lanes, then hit those trees," a police spokesman says. "It could have been much worse if they didn't have their seatbelts on. They were just too smart for their own good."

"This kid wasn’t even tall enough to see above the steering wheel,” says a neighbor who ran across the street to help after hearing the crash. “They were worried their mother was going to be mad at them." The boy told police that he wanted to go to the store, so he grabbed his mother's car keys while she slept. Police took the siblings back to their apartment and woke up their mother to let her know the kids had been joyriding in her car. There was no evidence the children had been neglected and no charges will be filed, police say. (More Utah stories.)

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