8-Year-Old Wrecks Drunk Father’s SUV, Father ‘Did Not See A Problem With The Situation’

What could be a happier story than a father and son bonding over a driving lesson? There is nothing better for most, though there could always be a bit of stress should things go sideways with an accident, especially if the accident is caused by your eight-year-old son driving and wrecking the car.

That’s right — The Smoking Gun reports that a father in Pennsylvania allowed his 8-year-old son to drive his sport utility vehicle. But before you go passing judgment, there’s a good reason, and it has to do with safety.

“Frank Gordon Conway, 46, was allegedly plastered when he let the child take over the driving duties around 9 PM on August 4. The boy, police noted, was seated between his father’s legs in the driver’s seat of a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee.

“The child, who was steering the vehicle and controlling its pedals, told police that he ‘drove in the yard, on the street and in the parking lot of the V.F.W. before re-entering the yard and hitting the wrong pedal which caused him to strike a tree,’ according to an October 14 probable cause affidavit.”

So you see, the father was attempting to do the right thing when he handed over control of the vehicle to a child not old enough to see over the steering wheel without being on his knees.

The best part of the story comes from the court documents, in which the father had a really good reason for allowing his child to sit in his lap and drive.

“An intoxicated Pennsylvania father told police that he ‘did not see a problem’ with allowing his eight-year-old son to drive his SUV, which the boy crashed into a tree late one night, according to court records.”

He did not see the problem, you see.

But maybe he was thinking #YOLO, like the aspiring rapper Ervin McKinness, who tweeted #YOLO before being killed in a car accident in 2012.

The Inquisitr reports that 20 minutes before the accident that took his life, McKinness tweeted, “Drunk af (as f*ck) going 120 drifting corners #F–kIt YOLO / Driving tweeting sipping the cup f–k yolo I’m turning it up.”

To our knowledge, the father in question did not tweet anything similar to that, but his alleged statement to police could be telling should he end up in front of a judge for the charges of misdemeanor child endangerment and reckless endangerment next month.

[Image via Flickr Creative Commons]