FAIRFIELD, Ohio (Reuters) -
A 6-year-old boy with a taste for the open road escaped from his Ohio day care center and took a toy truck for a joy ride on a local highway before police stopped him, police said Tuesday.
John Carpenter, 6, was found unharmed on Friday behind the wheel of a dark blue battery-powered toy truck headed down the highway in Fairfield, Ohio about 20 miles north of Cincinnati.
He had cruised about a mile in the dark blue truck, described by police as knee high and about 3 feet long. A flabbergasted motorist spotted him and telephoned authorities. Police were unable to say how fast the boy was traveling.
Police spokesman Ken Colburn said the boy had walked out of the Kiddie Kampus Pre-School and Day Care Center in Fairfield and came upon the truck parked outside ReRuns for Wee Ones, a second-hand children's store.
The battery-operated truck's wires had been unhooked, but the child reattached them, pulled off the price tag and hopped in.
Authorities later discovered that he had the same toy truck at home, which was how he knew to pop open the trunk and connect the cables.
The truck was returned without a scratch and was sold the next day to someone who had been amused by the story, Thomin said. Police were investigating how the boy escaped from the day care center.
