A 9-year-old and her 4-year-old sister walked away unscathed after crashing head-on with a semi-truck after stealing their parent’s car.
The young sisters stole the vehicle on Wednesday to travel to California so that they could swim in the ocean. The children pulled out of the driveway of their West Jordan, Utah home. From there, the 9-year-old driver got onto Bangerter Highway and headed north. The duo exited off of Bangerter onto state Route 201, eastbound.
The girls bumped into a pickup truck, which prompted its driver to follow them. He believed that the driver who hit his car was impaired, not realizing that it was a child behind the wheel.
“He discovered the driver of the other vehicle was not impaired but was, in fact, a 9-year-old female driving with her 4-year-old sister,” explained West Valley Police Lt. Bill Merritt.
The girls exited off of S.R. 201 and then went over a median, crossing into oncoming traffic. That is when they crashed head-on with the semi-truck. The driver of the truck told police that he doesn’t believe the girls braked when they sped into him. The car’s airbag deployed for the eldest sister, but not for her younger passenger. Luckily, they were both wearing seatbelts and were not injured. Neither was the truck driver.
“Both of them came out of this accident absolutely fine, which is very fortunate, as you can imagine,” according to West Valley police spokeswoman Roxeanne Vainuku.
The girl’s parents were not aware that their children had gone joyriding until receiving a “shocking call” later in the morning.
