A 3-year-old Oregon boy snuck out of his home, got behind the wheel of a jeep and crashed it into a house before fleeing the scene to watch cartoons, KPTV reported.
Wearing nothing but a diaper, the brave toddler got into the Jeep Wrangler outside his Myrtle Creek home and knocked it out of gear. The car sped down the road, through an intersection and over a curb when it finally drove into a yard and crashed into a house.
The tiny driver then hopped out the car, unharmed, and ran home, police said. Officers arrived at the child's home on Northwest Second Street to find him watching cartoons "as if nothing had ever happened," KPTV reported.
The boy's relative, 22-year-old Brennan Pennington, was apparently the only one home when the incident occurred at around 7:30 p.m. Police said Pennington was either in the bathroom or sleeping when the child climbed into the jeep.
But police came across the same 3-year-old sitting in the jeep earlier that morning. An officer saw the boy sitting alone in the vehicle and asked if his parents were home. The child, who also had the car keys, said his parents were not home but that a relative was sleeping inside.
Police alerted Pennington about the unsupervised toddler and issued a warning. He was later issued a formal citation for Failure to Supervise a Child after the joy ride, according to KVAL.
The boy's aunt, Amy Mayberry, who also owns the jeep, said it was by accident that her nephew got into the car. It was parked on an incline and the child accidentally knocked it into neutral, causing it to slide down the road.
No one at the home was injured in the crash and the homeowner negotiated a "civil compromise" with the family to deal with the damages.
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