12-year-old arrested after trying to drive solo across Australia

We’ve all done stupid stuff when we were younger. You know the kind of thing: Trying to buy cigarettes with a fake ID. Prank-calling radio stations. Stealing our parents’ car and driving partway across Australia.

No? Well a 12-year-old from New South Wales gave it a shot, making it 1,300 kilometres across the country before being stopped by police and arrested for…well…a few things.

The youngster, whose parents had reported him missing when he disappeared from the family home, reportedly set off from Kendall on Australia’s east coast.

But Australia is – in case you hadn’t heard – a pretty massive country, and the 1,300km wasn’t even far enough for him to leave the state. He was pulled over in the isolated city of Broken Hill, seemingly after an accident, with noticeable damage to the vehicle.

The Guardianquotes Detective Inspector Kim Fehon, who said “He was lucky he had an escape [after the accident]. But so did all the motorists on the way from Kendall to Cobar. They all had a lucky day as well.”

The paper reports that he was thought to be just one third of the way through an attempted 4,000km cross-country journey to Perth in Western Australia when he was arrested, before being returned to his parents.

Police are said to still be investigating his motives, but reports suggest he will be charged with driving without a licence and failing to pay for petrol.

(Images: Rex)