Last Friday, a 15-year-old boy from Wiesbaden, Germany, snuck into a bus depot, got access to one of the vehicles’master key and managed to drive away with a bus without anyone noticing. Technically, the theft was recorded by CCTV cameras, but the staff simply assumed the bus had been taken by one of their drivers.
Although the bus was taken around 6 a.m., police were notified later that afternoon. The company originally believed one of the drivers had accidentally taken the wrong bus, and it was only after checking with all their staff that they realised it had been stolen.
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Using the GPS-positioning device on the bus, police were quickly able to locate it in Karlsruhe, a city about 130 km (80 miles) away from Wiesbaden. A patrol car in Karlsruhe spotted the bus, and officers were shocked to find a teenager behind the wheel. He had just picked up his girlfriend from school and was apparently driving back to Wiesbaden.
“We do not yet know how he obtained the key and why he was able to drive the bus so well,” a police spokeswoman said, adding that the boy had taken the bus to drive his 14-year-old girlfriend to school.
An investigation in this unusual case is still ongoing, but the 15-year-old faces multiple charges, including theft and unlicensed driving. Luckily, no casualties were reported, and the bus was returned to its owners without so much as a scratch.
