Posted on 05/10/2005 1:47:03 PM PDT by Pylon
A 54-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of public drunkenness and child endangerment after authorities found his 9-year-old son behind the wheel of his car in Clairemont, San Diego police said Tuesday.
An officer spotted billowing smoke from an overheated car near the intersection of Balboa and Genesee avenues around 8:30 p.m. Sunday, police spokesman David Cohen said.
Behind the wheel was a boy who appeared too young to be driving, Cohen said.
The officer pulled the car over, but the siren apparently flustered the boy and he drove up on a curb and stopped just before hitting a telephone pole, 10News reported.
The young driver and his 6-year-old brother were crying as they and their father got out of the car, Cohen said.
The boy told police that he was driving because his father was too drunk, Cohen said.
The man was arrested on suspicion of public drunkenness and child endangerment, Cohen said.
The boys were released to their mother, he said. The couple is divorced.
I learned to drive kinda like that.
About 9 years old and back in the 50's so that should give you some idea how old I am.
Had a standard shift Chevy pick up, didnt think I would ever master the clutch.
Out on country roads and Dad was not drinking but in total supervision mode.
Taught me everything essential about driving.
The amazing thing here too is that the intersection they pulled him over at is a very busy intersection of 2 very busy streets. I wonder how far the kid drove before getting pulled over?
Hmmm.... 8:30pm and those two boys should have had dinner, baths and getting ready to go to bed. But no, another example of a selfish parent putting his needs before the childrens. It never ceases to amaze me that people who have children don't understand that for the next 18 + years, the parent needs to put the child first. If the children are lucky, they won't have to 'visit' dad for a few years.
He's a better kid than his parents deserve.
What he does now is what he is all about.
Since he stopped before the pole, does the fact that he hit the pole mean he started moving again after he'd stopped?
This boy of 9 has quite a potential. Hopefully, his character will blossom further and will not be smothered by idukators.
I think the writer meant he stopped short of the pole, just used a different way to phrase it
You're probably right, but for some reason I didn't parse it like that. IMHO, that construct works fine in the conditional past tense: "Had he applied the brake sooner, he could have stopped before hitting the telephone pole," but in the simple past tense it doesn't really.
I'm not nine, you silly woman!
When I was about 3 or 4, my father came home drunk.
I thought he was so funny that I went to all my neighbors and told them "Come see my father, he is drunk".
He quit drinking.
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