Legal Driving Age: 9-Year-Old Boy Arrested For Dangerously Driving On Mombasa Road!

"I taught him how to drive. I had hired a car from a friend to run some errands today. I know it's dangerous but it happened," said the non-remorseful father.

A nine-year-old boy was caught driving his 40-year old father on Mombasa Road, around Athi River in Machakos County. Traffic police noticed the boy driving a saloon car while in a full school uniform, but when he was flagged down, he accelerated towards Athi River township.

The boy’s father sat in the front passenger seat. His seven-year-old daughter, also in a school uniform, was in the back seat.

The officers pursued the vehicle and stopped it before it entered a private school in Athi River that the two children attend.

"Our officers managed to corner the boy, who was driving at high speed, before he went past the school gate. He was driving dangerously and he had not fastened the safety belt," Ms Agnes Makau, the Athi River base Commander said.

The man, a local contractor, was arrested and taken to the Athi River Police Station with his children. The children were later taken to school by officers in a police vehicle, and the father set to face the full force of the law.

He told the police that his son likes to drive at high speed and has been driving for the last two years.

It is illegal to drive on Kenyan roads before you are 18 years old.

However, according Transformational Coach Peris Wambugu, it is not wrong for children to learn driving as a life skill, but they should not be allowed on busy roads until they attain the prerequisite age. Teaching children how to drive can come in handy during emergencies.

Part Four, Chapter 33 of Kenya's Traffic Act posits that no driving licence or provisional licence shall be granted to any person under sixteen years.

Minors should not be allowed to drive on busy roads, since it poses a great risk to other motorists.

In the worst-case scenario where the minor causes an accident and the life of an innocent motorist or pedestrian is lost, it becomes a complicated police case since the insurance companies’ contract has a clause where the client declares that whoever will be driving the vehicle is licensed.

Safety first.