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9-Year-Old Driver Hits 80-Year-Old

Thursday, Feb 12, 2009 | Updated 10:54 AM CST

A 9-year-old got behind the wheel of her mother's car and hit an 80-year-old woman.

It was a driver's education course, about seven years too soon.

A 9-year-old girl jumped into the driver's seat of her mother's car, took off and ran into an 80-year-old woman, breaking both her legs Friday night on the South Side.

A woman parked in a fire lane at 6330 S. King Dr. about 7 p.m. and left her 9-year-old daughter and the girl’s 23-year-old aunt inside the car, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Police said.

The girl got in the driver’s seat and put the vehicle into gear while her aunt was talking on a cell phone inside the car, according to the police report.

The car hit an 80-year-old woman in the parking lot, pinning her under the vehicle and breaking both her legs, the spokeswoman said. The 80-year-old woman was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in stable condition.

Both the aunt and the girl's mother have been cited in the incident: the aunt endangering the life of a child and allowing an unauthorized individual to drive and the mother for driving on a suspended license, not having insurance and parking in a fire lane, the police spokeswoman said.