12-year-old drives stolen car on highway for 6 hours, tells police he has dwarfism

A 12-year-old boy in China was arrested after driving a stolen car on a highway for more than six hours — and tried to convince police he was an adult with dwarfism.

According to a report by the South China Morning Post, the boy, identified as Luo, is from the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China. He was stopped by a toll collector on June 15 after driving on the highway for six hours.

A toll collector grew suspicious of the unusually short driver and asked him to explain himself. Luo claimed he was an adult with dwarfism.

The collector was unconvinced and immediately called the police.

Officers who arrived at the scene confirmed that Luo was a child and legally unable to obtain a driver's license under Chinese law.

Luo told police he had been driving his aunt's car to visit his grandmother. That, too, was a lie. When officers contacted his father, the man said he had no idea his son even knew how to drive.

The car Luo claimed belonged to his aunt turned out to be a neighbor's vehicle. The owner only learned it had been stolen after police called.

Everyone involved was stunned to learn that Luo had already been behind the wheel for more than six hours by the time he was stopped at the toll booth. He was also wearing flip-flops, in violation of Chinese road safety regulations.

Police said their investigation found that Luo had stolen the neighbor's car keys and left home around 4 a.m. He drove for about 45 minutes before entering the highway, where he went undetected by road management staff for six hours. He had been paying tolls with cash from a red envelope received as a Lunar New Year gift, and was caught only when the money ran out.

Luo told police he had taught himself to drive for the thrill of it with friends, and said he had driven alone on public roads before.

Police called the incident a serious threat to road safety and summoned both Luo's guardians and the car's owner for a session on traffic safety laws and the dangers of underage driving. The guardians were reprimanded and formally warned for child neglect. The car owner was advised to store vehicle keys securely.

Online commenters reacted with alarm. "He could have caused an accident and put others in danger, yet he faces no legal consequences," one user wrote. Another said, "If another accident had occurred while he was driving, the car owner could have been held liable too — the neighbor really got the short end of this."

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