A 12 Year-Old Boy Drove 1300km Across Eastern Australia, Alone.

As some of you may have already heard, read or seen on the news, or pretty much anywhere on the web, a 12-year old boy was arrested on Saturday after he was found to have stolen a car and driven, unassisted and without a license (obviously) from Kendall to Broken Hill, NSW.

Please note: In case you believed this blog’s main image to be representative of the 12-year-old in question, unfortunately this was the only model we could find, willing to participate – and with that, she is actually innocent.

He was picked up by Police on Saturday morning after they noticed damage to the vehicle’s rear bumper – approximately 24 hours after he’d originally gone missing.

The boy’s parents called in to the Police on Friday at 11:10am, informing them of their son and filed a missing persons report.

There are plenty of articles cropping up about the event, and rightly so… after all, what we’re talking about here is something that movies are made of! It raises so many questions, most significantly, in our minds at least;

• How did he refuel the vehicle without being noticed?
• Did he prepare and take extra food and water supplies for his trip?
• What kind of vehicle was it?
• How did the accident occur that caused the damage to the rear bumper?

Despite there being, quite literally, hundreds of links to various renditions of the same story, none answer these key questions.

If they did, somebody might be on to a book idea!

Nonetheless, here are two of the best / most up-to-date, at the time of writing:

Link 1: http://www.9news.com.au/ – “Boy, 12, who tried to drive across Australia was only stopped when police noticed his broken bumper”

Link 2: http://www.smh.com.au/ – “Boy stopped at Broken Hill after “driving solo across NSW” on way to Perth”

While this boy’s story may well indeed make for a very good piece of entertainment at some point in the future, his actions reveal something far more concerning that parents, siblings, care-takers and educators seriously need to take into consideration.

Regardless of how advanced our society becomes, or how intrinsically good our children may be, there will come a point in their lives where their sense of adventure, sheer curiosity, the will to rebel or even simple mistakes can and will lead to them losing their way. Most are fortunate enough to find their way out, or get help, but there are those that don’t.

In our young hero’s case, one could argue that the Police did a good job in locating him within 24 hours, but the truth of the matter is, that if anything had gone wrong with the vehicle, or the child had been involved in a more serious accident, the stories we’d be reading would be very different… if there’d even be a story to tell!

We’re written a number of articles over the past few years, from various standpoints, regarding the best courses of action to take if people you know, love or care for go missing, but we thought to use this amazing story – of which it really is, and that young man is obviously made of some pretty strong stuff – to remind everyone out there that anything is possible and it’s best to be prepared.

We’re not suggesting that you and your family huddle round the dinner table tonight, and discuss a full-scale operation to search and retrieve, or tell the kids you expect them to run away – but we are hoping you’ll remember that if you or anyone you know does ever need assistance with a missing persons case, Precise Investigation maintains some of the highest retrieval rates of any PI firm in Australia.

The same can be said for more than children too; skip trace and location services can be applied to anyone that you might need locating, whether they’re an insurance claimant; an employee; a debtor; a lying spouse or even; a teenager with something to prove.

For more handy hints and tips, newsy bits and pieces and other interesting dabbles from around the country, be sure to check back frequently as we try to post regularly!

Keep well, keep safe and thanks for reading!

The Precise Investigation Team.

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