Woman Allows 6-Year-Old Behind Wheel Of SUV
AMBRIDGE (KDKA) -- A little girl from Beaver County would be more at home in the bumper cars at Kennywood Park, but police say, a relative recently instructed the kid to drive her SUV out of a tight parking spot.
A loud noise brought Terry Welling onto his front porch on Duss Avenue in Ambridge last month.
"I thought that somebody hit the gas instead of the brake," he said.
Police rolled up minutes later to the Ambridge High School parking lot.
"It wasn't five minutes that I come out and they were just pulling up," Welling said.
The police incident report describes how 54-year-old Rebecca Beatty, of Aliquippa, was picking up her 6-year-old niece, Cheyenne, from a dance rehearsal at Ambridge High School.
Returning to her SUV, she found the driver's door unreachable. An adjacent car parked too close.
So Beatty had the 6-year-old get into the driver's seat while she climbed into the passenger side, instructing the child to back out of the parking space and handed the kid the keys.
"And what I figured is somebody was backing up, accidentally hit the gas and just plowed into the car, and pushed it over the curb onto the street because if the van wasn't there it would have been out on the street," Welling added.
In all, four vehicles were damaged. One was totaled, but no one was hurt.
Beatty, a nurse, is still driving the Ford SUV involved in the accident, but she had no comment.
She is charged with endangering the welfare of a child and permitting an unauthorized person to drive.
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