{"id":543607,"date":"2026-03-16T07:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T07:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/543607\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T07:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T07:46:09","slug":"nine-year-old-australian-boy-allegedly-caught-driving-car-at-1-30am-on-major-highway-new-south-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/543607\/","title":{"rendered":"Nine-year-old Australian boy allegedly caught driving car at 1.30am on major highway | New South Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"

A nine-year-old boy has allegedly been caught steering a car after 1am on a major highway in New South Wales<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NSW police alleged that a 45-year-old driver was experiencing \u201csignificant fatigue\u201d and \u201coperating the pedals\u201d while the boy steered on his lap.<\/p>\n

A seatbelt detection camera captured the car travelling on the Great Western Highway at Mount Lambie, about 160km west of Sydney, at 1.35am on Saturday 7 March with the \u201cunrestrained child\u201d sitting on the man\u2019s lap, police alleged in a statement on Monday.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

After inquiries, officers attended the man\u2019s home at Lightning Ridge on Wednesday 11 March and spoke to him.<\/p>\n

He was then issued with a court notice and charged with four counts, including driving recklessly or dangerously, negligent driving, driving without proper control of a vehicle and driving with a passenger seatbelt not properly fastened.<\/p>\n

Map<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cPolice will allege the man was under significant fatigue, operating the pedals, while a nine-year-old boy was steering the vehicle,\u201d police said.<\/p>\n

The man was due to appear at Walgett local court on Tuesday 28 April. NSW police notified the Department of Communities and Justice.<\/p>\n

In 2017, a 12-year-old boy was stopped by police after trying to drive solo across Australia<\/a>, having already covered 1,300km.<\/p>\n

The boy was en route to Perth in his family\u2019s car when he was pulled over by highway patrol officers at Broken Hill in far west NSW after being involved in a crash<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A nine-year-old boy has allegedly been caught steering a car after 1am on a major highway in New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-543607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}