Originally published at: Child steals huge construction forklift and leads police on an hourlong chase (video) | Boing Boing
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Why are they pursuing him? Clearly they know who he is, and a rogue crane isn’t hard to miss. Sirens and multiple cars are just escalating the situation.
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There’s a reasonable question of what police action would be best given the situation, but “letting him drive off and trusting things would work out on their own” probably wouldn’t be a great idea either. For example, if the kid had started actively trying to hurt people with that machine the cops could have tried to box him in with their cars to contain the damage or in the very least acted as first responders to aid the injured.
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I don’t think that forklift can go very fast, so it wasn’t the kind of high speed chase that’s likely to get people hurt.
If anything, having a police car in pursuit with lights and sirens blaring probably helped avoid injury/damage by alerting third parties to the fact that something was wrong–especially when the kid drove through stop signs and red lights without stopping.
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Exactly; if I saw a forklift in my rear-view mirror I’d probably assume it was just a piece of construction equipment on its way to a work site. If I saw a forklift being pursued by a couple of cop cars flashing lights and blaring sirens then at least I’d know to get the hell out of the way.
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Hmm. That’s a little on the old side for this to be considered cute, innocent hijinks…
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I hope his first question was “Am I gonna get in trouble” Followed by the statement “please don’t tell my parents”. The irresponsible driver who left the keys in the ignition needs to be busted the hardest. Some places have a law about “attractive nuisances”, What the hell was this, a candy store with no adults, the door propped open, and a welcome mat out front. An EEG of the boy’s brain as he sees this large powerful tonka toy sitting there would be great! Good judgement, common sense, the concept of consequences were among the first victims of this Cluster Fuck.
Did he do wrong? Yeah he did. Should he have consequences? Yeah as long as they don’t destroy a young life. Should he be banned from the class trip to the fire station?
A shit ton of adults set the kid up. Not terribly different than leaving a loaded firearm lay out in plain sight. Go easy on the boy, I’m glad I didn’t see something like that when I was a kid.
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I have a friend who stole his teacher’s car when he was about that age. His teacher gave him car keys to get something out of the trunk. He was having a really bad day, and got in the car and drove himself home.
I forget the details of the consequences he suffered, but I’m pretty sure one of them was that he was blacklisted in all 50 states and DC from getting a driver’s license until he was 21. Also I think the school forbade teachers from giving their car keys to students.
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I don’t remember the incident in question, but sometime in my very young years (like around 8), there was a bulldozer parked in the vehicle lot out in front of my dad’s garage, waiting for service. Apparently I asked if I could drive it and when I received a “sure, if you can get it started” I went over and climbed into the seat.
It’s probably for the best that someone removed me from the seat as soon as they heard the engine start to turn over!
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Did you watch the video at all? The forklift is barreling through intersections and swerving into opposing traffic. At one point it goes off the road entirely and starts rolling over the sidewalk. The police eventually do turn off their lights and sirens, which I absolutely could not believe- with a blaring police car following it, at least everyone else is given a warning. The lights and sirens were off when the forklift jumped up onto the sidewalk- if a pedestrian had been walking down the street then, they would have had absolutely no time to react before being run down.
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an active and ongoing criminal investigation."
Well, we know who did it, and we know what he did… 
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FIX MY CAR NOW! /s
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While there are things I can still do with a car as far as basic maintenance goes, for actual repairs I take it to a shop as my working knowledge is about 35 years out of date! (I know more than enough that mechanics can’t pull a fast one on me, at least.)
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I lived in the neighborhood the first 5 minutes of this video takes place in when I played Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for the first time. For a while after that I thought about how much fun it would (briefly) be to jump in cars and joy ride on a daily basis. Thanks young dude, for letting me live vicariously through your reckless actions. And I’m very glad that no one was hurt. Yikes.
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Huge construction forklift? Actually, that’s a telescoping forklift (AKA zoom boom forklift, telehandler), and not a huge model at that. 
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But we don’t know how he ended up in control of the forklift. That’s important to figure out.
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Hopefully they’re looking into the adult failures to protect their property and the kid. If twelve year old boys are known for anything it sure as hell isn’t good judgement
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The video ends with “we are going to terminate, we are going to terminate…” – that does not sound great, hopefully it means end the chase. What did happen to the thief?
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I don’t disagree that leaving the keys in was an egregious error - which, no doubt, the vehicle’s insurers will point out to the owner!
But (and I fear getting flamed for this) the company did have its property stolen and we are getting a little close to victim-blaming here.
A 12-year-old stealing a massive piece of plant like this and then driving it the way they did is way beyond merely being ‘not good judgement’. The 12-year-old is not the victim here. (Though they may be a ‘victim’ of other things that may lead to such behaviour, but that risks the sort of speculation that is not usually encouraged here.)
@oncebce Here in UK I believe the farmers all call them telehandlers.
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So I don’t know the exact circumstances of this joyride, but I can tell you that most equipment on any jobsite will have the keys left in it, if there are keys at all (scissor lifts, boom lift, telehandlers etc.). There are a few reasons for this; if Bill used the lift last, takes the keys and then calls out the next day, no one else can use the lift, or they just waste (expensive) time trying to find the keys. There are also safety and access concerns; anyone needs to be able to move it if it is in the way of a delivery or emergency response. Is all this applicable in this instance
'Round these parts we call 'em a Lull. (Lull is a brand name made by JLG), so kinda like lowercase k kleenex.
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