A Boy Doing A Man’s Job

In the northern German town of Reinfield the police got a surprise when they pulled over an excavator driving down a city street yesterday. The driver immediately pulled over and excited the vehicle he even admitted he did not have a drivers licence. The licence thing was obvious due to the driver being a seven year old boy. When asked why he was driving the 11.5 foot tall machine the boy stated that his dad had complained about road conditions so he, the boy, used the machine to clear the road. In fact the young man was on his way back to his parents place of business to park the excavator when he was stopped. The police collected the keys and returned them and the boy home.
http://www.thelocal.de/national/20091224-24157.html

image from deere.com

Who We Are
Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Posted By: Alex - Fri Dec 25, 2009
Category:

Comments

What I find weird is that this made the news. Where I'm from, it is not uncommon to see kids on farm equipment such as tractors. I drove one on my grandfather's place when I was little. Of course, times are different now and we wrap our kids in knee pads and helmets and car seats with five point harnesses. But remember standing up in the backseat of a smoke-filled car as your mom tooled along at 55 mph, chain smoking, and not wanting to roll down the window cause it would mess up her hair? No? That was just me? It would explain a lot...

Posted by Nethie on 12/25/09 at 06:47 PM

me too nethie, me too. i think this was in town and i don't know what the do in germany. my brother-in-law grew up on a farm and drove equipment from an early age too. he built my nephew a little 3 wheeler when my nephew was 2. it was geared way down and b-in-l ran along side helping nephew steer. the boy has been driving all sorts of vehicles at grandpa's farm ever since.

Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 12/25/09 at 07:23 PM

mw, kitchen staff are some of the craziest and most fun people i've ever worked with! i love all my guys in the kitchen.

Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 12/25/09 at 08:36 PM

the soup isn't nearly hot enough if you can do that sweetie! 😉

Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 12/25/09 at 10:02 PM

I gotta agree, where's the story, Gustaf?

Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 12/26/09 at 12:32 AM

If you've never shoveled a 60 foot driveway of 2ft deep wet snow, by hand, you don't get to judge, Cristi. If you have you're being facetious, right?

Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 12/26/09 at 12:13 PM

no doubt about that expat! exhausting for the young, sometimes deadly for middle age and up. every year there are heart attacks from older more sedentary guys going out to shovel deep, wet snow.

Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 12/26/09 at 12:35 PM

oops ya got me mb.

that's what i thought too malk.

Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 12/27/09 at 01:51 AM

Commenting is not available in this channel entry.