Chinese boy, six, filmed ‘driving’ family car while sitting on dad’s lap
Police to investigate after seeing footage in which women encourage child to ‘step on the gas’
A video of a six-year-old boy driving a car in southern China has excited internet users and sparked a police enquiry, local media reported.
The footage, which was widely circulated online, shows the unnamed child steering the vehicle, which has a Kia badge on the wheel, from the comfort of his father’s lap, the state-owned Chinanews.com reported on Friday.
The incident happened on Monday in Qinzhou, a city in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. The video, which lasts only about 10 seconds before being repeated on a loop, was shot by a friend of the boy’s father, the report said.
In the footage, two women can be heard instructing the child from the rear seat, telling him to “step on the gas” and “slam the brake”.
According to the report, the boy asked his father, surnamed Deng, if he could drive for a while as they were on their way back from registering the child at a local primary school. It did not say how long he actually spent behind the wheel.
Police were quoted as saying they had confiscated Deng’s driving licence pending a full investigation. They did not say if he would face any charges.
Online opinion was predictably mixed.
“Thank god the boy didn’t cause an accident,” one person wrote on Weibo, China’s equivalent to Twitter.
Another Weibo user said the boy was “so brave and smart” to be able to drive at such an early age.
