Kids Driving Cars

"For cryin' out loud, there's a kid driving the car!"

"Oh, isn't that cute? A baby driving a car!"

— Chief Wiggum, The Simpsons

In most countries with well-developed road systems, people under a certain age, usually between 15 and 18, are barred from driving cars. In TV-land, children and younger teens may be seen driving if the plot demands it, even though doing so would be illegal or downright impossible in Real Life. Sometimes, they even drive more-or-less effectively despite having never done so before.

Sometimes, the adult characters are nowhere to be seen and the kids must drive somewhere to save the day. In these cases, expect I Know Mortal Kombat to come into play, with the kid turning out to be a Badass Driver due to their experience playing Racing Games or driving toy vehicles. This is obviously due to Rule of Cool and very much Artistic License – Cars- with particularly young children one wonders how their feet can even reach the pedals. This is often a form of Wish-Fulfillment for car-loving kid audiences. Other times, Surprisingly Realistic Outcome and Are You Sure You Can Drive This Thing? comes into play.

Other times, particularly with older kids and teens, the characters may drive for illicit pleasure, sometimes playing a Game of Chicken or joyriding stolen cars. Such characters are likely Delinquents.

In either case, if the kids are the protagonist this tends to happen in a climactic scene. Rarely is the car the kid's own, so there's usually a subplot about the characters trying to sneakily leave with or return the car. Chances are high that the car used is The Precious, Precious Car, particularly if the kid Drives Like Crazy as is often the case. May be justified by Minor with Fake I.D..

In historical, non-Western, or rural settings, where auto regulations are less strict and Free-Range Children is in effect, children driving cars or farm vehicles may be Truth in Television. In these cases, children driving can establish the setting as a simpler, more self-reliant time or establish the young driver as exceptionally mature. This can also be Played for Drama if the driving is a form of child labor.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Aldnoah.Zero, Eddelrittuo commandeers a Humvee in the first season finale.
• In Bad Company, 18-year-old Natsuki takes middle schoolers Eikichi and Ryuji riding in her car, and even lets Ryuji try driving it (which she quickly regrets).
• The Kid Heroes of Chousoku Henkei Gyrozetter are ages 11 to 14. And they drive cars. Which transform into mechs. Justified in that in that setting many cars have AI sufficient to allow even children their age to drive safely, so the kids aren't really piloting the vehicles entirely on their own.
• The final chase in Doraemon: Nobita in the Wan-Nyan Spacetime Odyssey have the gang in their escape vehicle, being piloted by their new ally, the 10-year-old Hachi while being pursued by the vengeful main villain Nekojara who's in control of a giant airborne robot. Halfway through the chase Nekojara managed to snatch Suneo, Gian and Nobita, and Hachi's attempts to grab Nobita's hands have him getting dragged out as well, at which point Shizuka who's riding shotgun takes over the wheels.
  • Subversion in Stand by Me Doraemon 2, which have Nobita swapping bodies with his adult self. Adult!Nobita, stuck in kid!Nobita's body, accidentally runs into some hooligans and escapes by hijacking a delivery boy's motorcycle, but Nobita had never driven motorcycles either as a child or adult, and the results are as chaotic as one could expect.
• Masashi, classmate of FLCL's 12-year-old protagonist Naota, has a part-time job driving a (very small) delivery truck.
• Exaggerated in Girls und Panzer and its spinoffs, not only we have high school girls driving and shooting around in World War 2 tanks, but they also can be seen behind the wheels of many other heavy duty military vehicles such as helicopters, airships and even a freaking strategic airlifter.
• This is the reason behind Takumi's amazing driving skills in Initial D. His father Bunta, who owns a tofu shop, forced Takumi to deliver the product overnight to a restaurant near the top of Mount Akina, driving an old Toyota Corolla AE86... since the boy was twelve. Keep in mind that the Akina mountain pass is considered a tricky road even among local street racers. The poor kid had to quickly master how to drive both fast AND accurately in order to deliver the tofu on time without ruining it... or getting himself killed in some horrific car accident. THEN he had to take the downhill route fast enough to get some sleep for the following school day.
  • Turns out that Bunta actually planned everything. Takumi's father was an extremely skilled street racer on his prime, and conceived the whole tofu delivery thing as a risky albeit rewarding way to train his son (well, and also because Bunta was too lazy to deliver it on his own). Even the car, despite its unassuming look, is in fact a fine-tuned drift machine able to overclass several sportscars if the driver is skilled enough (which is Truth in Television, as Real Life Drift King Keiichi Tsuchiya can confirm).
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean: After Jolyne and Ermes manage to break out of Green Dolphin Street Prison, they have Emporio drive them to the Kennedy Space Center to stop Pucci. Granted, he did learn the basic mechanics of cars during his time reading books in the prison's library, but still.
• Tiff from Kirby: Right Back at Ya! drives a car in the Kirby 3D special.
• Science Ninja Team Gatchaman had the Kid Hero member, Jinpei, have a special license to drive his own car, which transformed into his all-terrain Hover Tank when he went into costume.
• Seraph of the End has two examples. In both cases, a teenager drives a car. Yuuichiro can not wait to drive with a car, even though the person who has just repaired the car tells him that he will teach him to drive later. It comes as expected, and Yuuichiro drives the car to scrap.
  • Then there is Shinoa. She is actually a very competent driver, at least in comparison to Yuichiro. However, she is much too small to see where she drives, which leads to some mocking.
• While not exactly a "kid," 14 year old Shizuka Hattori from Strike Witches is trained on how to drive an army Jeep. She does pretty well in normal circumstances, but when the Neuroi show up she lets her (slightly) more experienced instructor Yoshika Miyafuji take over the wheel.
• In Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online, while Fukaziroh isn't actually a kid (aged 19), her in-game avatar is only around 150cm tall so that she has the appearance of one. Despite her size, she's able to drive a large humvee with no difficulty.

Asian Animation

• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: The goats drive a big train in Marching to the New Wonderland despite being children.
• In Simple Samosa, Samosa and friends are young children, but are nevertheless seen driving vehicles every once in a while.
  • In "Chutney Dam", Samosa drives one of the many construction vehicles aiming to squeeze the chutney out of Dhokla.
  • In "Dadi Ke Saath", Samosa's grandma lets Jalebi and later Samosa himself ride her motorcycle.
  • In "Dhakkad Race", the gang ride a monster truck in a race.
  • In "Patang Hurdang", one of Samosa's attempts to get Vada down from the air is to launch himself skyward by riding a motorcycle up a ramp.

Comic Books

• In The Spirit, the Spirit's kid sidekick Ebony White drives a cab for a living.

Comic Strips

• In one Calvin and Hobbes story arc, Calvin tries to push the car out into the driveway to make room in the garage for him and Hobbes to host club meetings. Unfortunately, the car keeps on rolling, and ends up in a ditch.

Films — Animation

• During the climax of Hey Arnold! The Movie, Gerald gets behind the wheel of a runaway city bus when the driver is knocked out cold while Arnold and Helga work on the pedals.
• In the climax of Monster House, Chowder is shown to be skillful at operating an excavator enough to bravely fight against the titular, monstrous house. Lampshaded by Jenny who is riding with him.
  Jenny: How do you know how to drive this thing?
  Chowder: I don't.
• Toward the end of Over the Hedge, the porcupine pups have taken over driving the exterminator's van. Unfortunately, their only frame of reference is a video game where the objective is to cause as much mayhem as possible. As such, they see people throwing a block party as "bonus points", and the speed limit (which they are exceeding by an increasing margin) as their score.
• In Son of Batman, just as soon as Talia drops Damian (his age isn't stated, but he can't be older than 11-12) with Batman to take care of him, Damian demands to drive the Batmobile, arguing that he knows how to do it (starting a Running Gag of him boasting that he mastered skills like computer hacking, mountaineering or assassination at highly inappropriate ages). Then at the start of Batman vs. Robin, we see Damian (now as Robin) stole the Batmobile to investigate a ghost town.
  Bruce: I've half a mind to report you for Grand Theft Auto!
  Damian: I'd like to hear that call. Hello, police? My son just stole the Batmobile.
• This isn't an issue in Wreck-It Ralph, as the childlike denizens of Sugar Rush are driving racing cars that are sized for them. However, in the sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet, Vanellope has no difficulties driving the cars found in the Slaughter Race game, even impressing the NPCs here, despite those cars being conceived for adult-sized avatars.

Films — Live-Action

• About Scout: After Scout and Sam steal a car, Scout does most of the driving, even though she's fifteen and Sam has a driver's license.
• Addams Family Values: As a way of escaping Camp Chippewa, young Pugsley steals a van and drives home with his older sister, Wednesday. Their friend, Joel Glicker, is offered a ride, but he declines it.
• Beethoven: In the climax of the first movie, when a gunshot is fired with his father in the warehouse and his mother away calling the police, Ted Newton decides to drive the family station wagon with his sisters in tow to rescue his father and dog.
• Cop Car: Two adolescents take a joy ride in a cop car, little realizing that the cop in question is corrupt and has a murder victim in the trunk.
• Kenny Dantley from Corvette Summer learned to drive when he was nine and was racing cars at thirteen.
• Dante's Peak: When the volcano erupts, Rachel's two kids steal her truck so they can drive up the mountain to rescue grandma.
• In the DVD extras for Desperado, Robert Rodriguez films some Mexican preteens driving a car, and says this isn't an unusual sight South of the Border.
• Dream Picture: A baby is abandoned in a car and drives away. His parents find him after he's stopped by a traffic cop for driving erratically.
• In E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, during an emergency Elliot's brother Michael, who was around the age of 15, goes to hijack and drive away the van with E.T. inside. There was some Chekhov's Skill dropped earlier about him being able(ish) to drive the family car backwards but the van was a whole different beast.
• In The Gnomemobile, young Elizabeth and Rodney drive a car with one running the pedals and the other steering the wheel.
• Justified in Holy Matrimony. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character is a Mennonite farm-boy and has a license to drive a pickup truck on their property, but when they hit the highway, he has to turn over the wheel to an adult (who he has to instruct on how to drive a stick-shift).
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: Indy has Short Round act as a getaway driver for his meeting with Lao Che. Short Round's age isn't given in the film, but his actor (Ke Huy Quan) was twelve when the movie came out. He ties boxes around his feet to operate the pedals of the car.
• Josh and S.A.M.: Brothers Joshua and Samuel Whitney steal their parents' car and use it to run away from home. Despite being 14 years and 9 years old, they don't have any trouble with driving the car.
• Little Man is actually about a 2.5 feet tall adult dwarf masquerading as a baby. He drives a car and uses a toy baseball bat to depress the gas pedal.
• Logan: The 11-year-old Laura is able to drive around a truck that she and Logan are traveling in. It's perplexing that her feet can even reach the pedals.
• In the The Lovely Bones, In a flashback scene a 12-year-old Susie Salmon takes her parents' car so she can take her younger brother Buckley to the hospital after noticing that he's choking on a twig.
• Mermaids: Rachel Flax allows her 15-year-old daughter Charlotte drive her car, and it's implied that she taught Charlotte even before that. Charlotte later steals her mother's car and runs away because she thinks she's pregnant after kissing her crush (long story).
• The Mother teaches survival skills to her daughter Zoe, the first of which is how to drive a car, despite her being only twelve, as Zoe points out. Naturally this becomes a Chekhov's Skill later in the movie.
• O Brother, Where Art Thou?: Everett, Pete, and Delmer manage to escape from a burning barn when Boy Hogwallop bursts through the barn door in his dad's car and offers them a lift. Since Boy is quite small, he uses a brick to weigh down the accelerator. Later, Everett steals the car, leaving Boy to curse him, Pete and Delmer as he walks back to his dad's farm.
• At the end of The Poker House fourteen-year-old Agnes (played by Jennifer Lawrence), drives in the family's station wagon to pick up her younger sisters after winning her basketball game.
• Problem Child: Junior is able to drive Ben's car by reclining under the dash and working the wheel from overhead. Obviously, he can't see where he's going like this, so Ben has to yell directions to him from his perch on the windshield (or while standing up through the sunroof, when they deliberately do this later to team up against the baddie). By the second movie, he's gotten good enough to just take the wheel like normal... and is quite familiar with the ol' highway salute.
• In Spider-Man: Homecoming, the fifteen-year-old Peter Parker, while dressed as Spider-Man, decides to "borrow" the car of Flash Thompson. However, he has yet to have a license and hasn't really had any practice aside from a driving around the parking lot. Predictably his driving is awful and the car comes out worse for wear by the time he arrives at his destination.
• Star Trek (2009): A young Jim Kirk steals a very old-model car and goes for a joyride to the tune of Beastie Boys' "Sabotage." When he tries to escape law enforcement, he winds up sending the car over the cliff, barely escaping in time.^note Originally, the car was identified as a classic car owned by his abusive stepfather, but this was dropped from the final cut.
• Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie: 12-year-old Justin becomes the new blue ranger. He also becomes the driver of the Mountain Blaster Turbozord.
  Justin: Good thing you don't need a license to drive a Zord.
• Spanish film Volando voy is based on the true story of Juan Carlos Delgado 'El Pera', who became notorious in the late 70's for easily stealing and driving cars for local mobsters... at the age of 11.
• Wanda Nevada: When Strap and Ruby are pursuing Beau and Wanda by car, Beau has thirteen-year-old Wanda take over the steering wheel while he shoots their tires.
• In Wild America, Marshall's older brothers let him drive them back home, even though he isn't old enough. A few miles outside Fort Smith, he starts pretending he's flying an airplane, so he swerves all over the road and then crashes. Their father has to tow the car the remaining three miles.
• In X2: X-Men United it is humorously subverted. After some teenage mutants and Wolverine escape, they find a car. Pyro says he wants to drive, but Wolverine stops him.

Literature

• All the Wrong Questions: The Bellerophon brothers, who run their father’s taxi service because he’s ill. Since both of them are too short to drive on their own, Pip works the steering wheel while Squeak works the brakes, and this arrangement works out pretty well.
• Animorphs shows Marco. He claims to be able to drive because he knows it from computer games. In fact, he demonstrates his lousy driving skills in the first book. Even in later volumes, his bad driving style is presented with humor. Even Ax, an alien, is scared when Marco gets behind the wheel.
  • Much later, it turns out that Tobias is even a much worse driver.
• In Daniel Pinkwater's Borgel, the protagonist, who is somewhere in the 9-13 age range, ends up abandoned at an interdimensional root beer stand with his uncle's car. After being trapped there for a month, he gets fed up and drives away through space. He does a pretty good job and ends up rescuing his uncle, despite being a kid who had never driven before.
• Attempted in Bud, Not Buddy. Bud is traveling through the countryside on foot late at night when Mr. Lewis, who is transporting blood to the hospital, gives him a lift. Bud sees the blood, thinks Mr. Lewis is a vampire, and tries to drive off in the car. Mr. Lewis is terrified to be left stranded near a sundown town, where he could be arrested or killed if anyone sees him. Luckily Bud doesn't know how the gear shift works, so the car comes to a stop a short distance later.
• Danny, the Champion of the World: When the nine-year-old Danny fears that his father has been injured while poaching, he takes a customer's car out to fetch him. Despite driving quite slowly, in complete terror, and being passed by a police car, he manages it without incident. Justified since he's helped out in his father's car repair shop for most of his life and knows them inside and out.
• In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the Weasley twins (age 13) rescue Harry from his uncle's house in a flying car. Later on, Harry and Ron (age 12) go on an hours-long road trip in the same car, which they end up crashing, though this has more to do with the car malfunctioning than their driving skills. They get in trouble for using the car both times.
• In Percy Jackson and the Olympians it is humorously inverted. Zoe Nightshade is a very good driver. According to her own statement, she has been driving ever since cars were invented (in fact she is already thousands of years old). Her companions, however, are worried that the police will stop her because she looks like a young teenage girl.
  • Thalia Grace obviously can drive too. In fact, Apollo leaves her even for a short time his sun chariot.
• In The Phantom Tollbooth Milo, who's a young boy, drives around in a toy automobile. This being the sixties, it must've been a pedal car (if one with a glove compartment ?!?), but upon reaching the Lands Beyond it transforms into a miniature real car, albeit one with an infinite gas tank or battery.
• Pilgrennon's Children: While ten-year-old Dana is trying to find Pilgrennon's hideout in the first book, she steals a man's car and figures out how to drive it, with much trial and error. Luckily she's in a sparsely populated area, and manages to drive a number of miles before crashing.
• Red Dwarf: In the final section of Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, Lister's son Bexley can drive; apparently everyone in town thinks this is "funny" and the local cop doesn't do anything about it on the grounds that Bexley is a better driver than he is. Bexley is fifteen months old. Finally realising how ridiculous this is is part of what finally clues Lister in to the fact that he's actually playing Better Than Life.
• 'Salem's Lot has the ever resourceful twelve year old Mark Petrie forced to drive his parents' car because all the adults that were present are dead and the others are clear across town. Subverting the usual for this, he's shown to be a very bad driver, barely able to get the car going in stuttering stops and starts because he doesn't know which gears to shift to.
• The children's book series The Sisters Eight involves eight sisters being left alone without a guardian after their parents mysteriously vanish. Whenever they have to go somewhere, Annie (who is only seven) dresses up as an adult and drives the car, using sticks to reach the pedals. It actually works.
• In Robert A. Heinlein juveniles, there are casual references to helicopters being used as Flying Cars, such as the Farm Boy in Space Cadet (Heinlein) mentioning that he got his 'copter license at the age of twelve. In Revolt in 2100, the protagonist says that any schoolboy can push a helicopter (though not pilot the heavy bombing helicopters they need to win the revolt).

Live-Action TV

• This early-70s PSA shows the dangers of leaving a curious child alone in a running vehicle.
• Americas Dumbest Criminals: In one episode Daniel Butler relates the tale of a very drunk guy who decided to have his ten-year-old son drive them home. A police car spotted the pair; when the cop flashed lights and siren, the kid's dad told him to "keep going"(!). With options limited, the officer called the situation in and followed, then busted the dad once the kid pulled into the driveway and turned off the car. The re-enactment put a ten-year-old actor in the front seat of a (parked) car used to show just how bad an idea this was; he could just see over the dashboard.
• In an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer a drug-infusing chocolate is distributed throughout Sunnydale, which is why adults behave like children and teenagers again. After Joyce, Buffy's mother, also ate this chocolate, she gives Buffy her car. And Buffy demonstrates such a wild driving style that Willow is utterly horrified and scared, and in fact, Buffy gets into an accident that damages the car. Later, Buffy says that the damage happened in the fight against evil, but Joyce is still not amused. The same episode shows two adults behaving like teens again, driving a car for fun. It ends with an accident in which some property damage happens, but nobody gets hurt.
• CHiPs had an episode where John and Ponch have to chase down a couple of kids driving around in a car and it gets out of control since they obviously don't know how to drive.
• An episode of Cold Case has a 12-year-old taking the family car to commit a drive-by shooting at a park hoping to kill the slimy gun dealer who his mother is having an affair with. Unfortunately, he ends up accidentally killing his six-year-old sister, who was also at the park.
• In an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, it is revealed that 14-year-old Ashley has been secretly driving cars ever since she was twelve years old. But it turns out to be a good thing because nobody else is around to drive her pregnant mother to the hospital to have her baby.
• G.B.H. has a scene in which a family needs to drive to another city but their usual driver is unavailable, so their ten-year-old son offers to drive. On the way, a policeman considers pulling them over because he feels that something "just isn't right", but decides against it after his partner points out that the driver's driving is flawless. When they arrive at their destination, Michael Murray recognizes the car and expects that one of his enemies will be driving, but when he looks in the window and sees a ten-year-old driving, it triggers the worst yet attack of a nervous tic in his arm.
• In Henry Danger, Piper, who is 12, is mailed a driver's license by mistake. Still, she keeps it and uses it as an excuse to be able to drive a car. No one, not even her parents, seem to bat an eye at this.
• Odd Squad:
  • Parodied in Season 1 and Season 2. While the primary mode of transportation for agents working at Odd Squad is Tube Travel, many also get around in not regular cars, but toy cars that run on battery power and only have room for one agent. Olive ends up commandeering one of these cars from another agent in "Party of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1" and drives it all the way to the WODD radio station, while Oprah has a toy car of her own that she keeps hidden under a couch in her office and is seen driving in "Partner Problems".
  • The trope is downplayed in Season 3 with the Odd Squad Mobile Unit, who travels around the world using a van. They aren't the ones who drive it, however — rather, it's mostly driven by the vehicle's personal computer, with the agents handling the more manual duties, such as pushing buttons and giving commands to the computer when needed in order to direct the van (like telling it where to drive to).
• In Roseanne episode "The Driver's Seat", D.J. takes the car for a spin, crashes it and walks back home with the family none the wiser until the cops end up locating it and giving a description of the driver which fit him to a T. Sadly, this causes an already stressed-out and angry Roseanne to both yell at and smack him.
• The Sopranos: In "Down the Neck", AJ takes his mother's car for a joyride, even though he is only 13 years old. He ends up crashing into a parked vehicle, which breaks the mirror on the driver's door of his mom's car.
• Stranger Things
  • In season 2, Steve (18) blacks out after his fight with Billy. Since he was the only one in the group old enough to drive, Max (13) ends up driving everyone to the pumpkin patch. Needless to say, she doesn't kill anyone, but Steve is very alarmed when he wakes up to find an eighth-grader driving the car.
  • Happens again in Season 3. Dustin (14), inspired by Max, commandeers a golf cart in the underground Russian research facility in order to rescue Steve and Robin and escape with everyone. Despite never having driven a car before, it goes without a hitch, except for a minor crash just as they've reached their destination.
• The Wire: Donut is a prolific car thief already in sixth grade, and once gets into Hot Pursuit with Officer Walker while driving a stolen SUV, hitting multiple parked cars while getting away.
• A few clips on World's Dumbest... have children taking cars on joyrides. On one of those clips, Gary Busey chastises the car's owner for leaving the doors unlocked, allowing a kid to take it.
• In an episode of Young Sheldon, 14-year old George Jr. steals Meemaw's car keys and car to drive him, Sheldon and Missy all go to the hospital to go see their father who has been hospitalized by a heart attack. Being too afraid to get in an accident or be noticed by authorities, Georgie goes too slowly which is just as hazardous as driving too fast.

Music

• The music video for Flying Lotus' "Never Catch Me" has the spirits of a little boy and girl escape their funeral and drive their hearse off into the sunset.

Theater

• 13: During the song "A Little More Homework", Eddie states he "got busted for driving his dad's pickup" when he turned thirteen.

Video Games

• Disney Speedstorm:
  • Mowgli from The Jungle Book (1967) is the first human child racer in the game despite coming from a time and place before cars.
    Mowgli: I'm big enough! Honest!
  • Lilo from Lilo & Stitch is the second human child racer in the game. Unlike Mowgli, however, she has driven or piloted vehicles before in her canon, namely flying a hovercar in the ending montage of the first film and in Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch, and occasionally drove the X-Buggy in Lilo & Stitch: The Series.
  • Vanellope Von Schweetz from Wreck-It Ralph is the third child racer in the game, and while she is too young to legally drive, her inclusion in the game is justified since she originated from the Sugar Rush Speedway arcade game, where the racers in her world are also children.
• Ellie in The Last of Us. After Joel, Ellie and Bill find a functional pickup truck, Bill notes that the battery is drained. They have to push it down the hill so that the alternator will recharge the battery. Joel and Bill push while Ellie is behind the wheel. Once the truck starts up, Joel and Bill jump in the bed and Ellie drives away from the Infected. Once they're away from the Infected, Joel takes the wheel. In the Left BehindDLC, Ellie says that this wasn't her first time driving a car.
• Mario Kart:
  • Since Double Dash, baby versions of Mario characters are able to drive cars alongside their adult counterparts. Certain games even have cars that are specifically designed for them.
  • There is also Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings (Though this is most likely to apply to Lemmy), who are around children ages.
  • As of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the Inklings have been added to the roster. They're a borderline case, being an indeterminate age but no younger than 14.
• Persona 5: Joker is responsible for driving the Phantom Thieves around in the Mona Bus initially, but this only happens in the Metaverse- in the real world he only ever uses the public transit system. Once she joins the team, Makoto takes over driving, since she actually has a driver's license in the real world. Haru tries driving once shortly before the team, but her style is... unique.
• Considering the source materials featured in the games, Nickelodeon Kart Racers and its sequel, Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix feature child characters from Rugrats, Hey Arnold!, and in the case of Grand Prix, The Loud House driving cars alongside teen and adult characters from other Nicktoons franchises. The youngest of these drivers is Tommy Pickles, a one-year-old baby.
• In The Simpsons: Road Rage and The Simpsons Hit & Run, Bart and Lisa are able to drive vehicles despite only being ten and eight years old, respectively. In Road Rage, they're limited to just driving the Honor Roller and the Electaurus, respectively, but in Hit and Run, they, like Homer, Marge, and Apu, can drive any type of vehicle they want.
• Tails and Amy are seen driving their race cars in various Sonic the Hedgehog racing games, such as Sonic Drift and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, despite respectively being 8 and 12 years old. (Of course, Tails, being Tails, has already flown airplanes with more skill than most Air Force fighter pilots, so it's unsurprising he can handle a car.) Even Sonic may qualify for areas requiring to be 16 or older to drive, being 15 years old. Heck, Blaze and Silver, being 14, drive cars in Team Sonic Racing.

Western Animation

• In American Dad! episode "Independent Film", Steve, Snot, Barry and Toshi take a trip to the funeral of Snot's deadbeat dad. They are all 14 and have no adult supervision, with Barry behind the wheel. Lampshaded by Toshi.
  Toshi: Is Barry old enough to drive?
• In Ben 10: Alien Force, the then 15-year-old Ben Tennyson reveals he got taught to drive in emergencies even though he has yet to try out for his license.
• In Busytown Mysteries from the Richard Scarry universe, Huckle drives around in a car, his sister Sally rides around on a motor scooter and Pig Will & Pig Won't drive a pickle car.
• Camp Lazlo: In "Racing Slicks", Bean scout Edward uses a credit card to buy a race car despite being only a child. He drives the race car in Camp Kidney's soap box derby.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers: In "Skumm Lord", the villain's latest plot involves turning people into rat mutants via a special brew. When Wheeler, Linka and Gi end up infected as well, Ma-Ti and Kwame decide to take them to the shaman from Ma-Ti's tribe. Thus, Kwame catches the three on a lasso and pulls them aboard the Geo Cruiser, while the 12-year-old Ma-Ti is steering. To further complicate things, the villain immediately starts chasing them. Kwame isn't sure of his young friend's skill from the beginning, and almost gets a panic attack when Ma-Ti reveals that he's only done one simulation on Hope Island. Unfortunately, they're too far along to switch pilots by that time.
• Codename: Kids Next Door, although children are forbidden by adults from driving cars we see that the Kids Next Door have vehicles and technology that grant them high-speed transportation in land, air, sea, space, and even underground proving that age is not a factor in cognitive driving skills. Numbuh Two himself is an expert pilot though this could be because he's Sector V's chief architect and designed the vehicles that he's piloting himself. Even babies are capable of developing and driving their own cars!
  • One episode however, did show Numbuh 4 driving a regular ice cream truck, with his short height making him barely able to see over the steering wheel. How would he be able to reach the pedals is anyone's guess.
• Occurs several times in Dexter's Laboratory:
  • In "Ewww That's Growth", Dexter undergoes a scientific experiment, which increases his height. Dexter's new height impresses his dad and he lets Dexter drive himself and Dee Dee to a carnival.
  • In "Mock 5", a parody of Speed Racer, Dexter drives a race car through a soap box derby. His rival, Mandark, competes in the derby and drives a race car as well. Dee Dee is another racer, who is disguised as Racer D.
  • Dexter is also seen driving small vehicles throughout his lab.
• In one episode of Doug, the title character has an Imagine Spot of him and his friend Skeeter driving a truck to get to a Beets concert. Unfortunately, due to neither of them knowing how to drive, the fantasy ends with them going over a cliff.
• The Fairly OddParents! film Channel Chasers features a segment that parodies Speed Racer. Timmy, of course, ends up racing and wins, but he's then called out by his "father" as being "too young to race in this race".
• In The Get Along Gang pilot episode, the Gang had to drive in a car race to win the last item from the scavenger hunt list, and nobody in the gang is even old enough to have a learner's permit!
• God, the Devil and Bob: In the episode "Date from Hell", The Devil disguises himself as a 13-year-old boy named Jordan. He dates Megan; Bob's daughter. While on a date, Jordan drives Megan to a roller rink.
  Megan: How are you able to drive at age 13?
  Jordan: I don't know.
• Gravity Falls: In the chase scene of the first part of "Weirdmageddon", 15-year old Wendy drives a truck while she and Dipper are escaping Gideon and his henchman, but not before she clarifies she never drove before that moment.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: Billy, Mandy, Mindy, Sperg and Irwin compete in an Indy 500 race during the episode "Go-Kart 3000". Mindy drives a Formula One race car while Mandy drives a race car that is actually Grim. Billy and Irwin drive a car that they made out of wood and junk. Sperg drives a giant, monstrous vehicle.
• In the King of the Hill episode "As Old As The Hills", Bobby (who is about 12 at this point) is forced to drive his grandmother-in-law Didi to the hospital when she goes into labor. He cites this as the reason why he can't ask for directions when they get lost.
  Bobby: I can't ask for directions, I'm not even supposed to be driving this car!
• The Little Rascals: Spanky almost always drives the gang's wooden car, though the intro to The Monchhichis/Little Rascals/Richie Rich Show has Alfalfa driving.
• My Gym Partner's a Monkey: In the episode "Nice Mustache", Jake grows a mustache despite being 12 years old. One of the first things that he does is buy a car. He drives it with his best friend, Adam, who protests that Jake isn't old enough to drive. They are pulled over by a police officer. Instead of being arrested for underage driving, the officer complements Jake on his mustache.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • "The Secret of Success" features the boys creating an "All Terrain Vehicle"— one that can truly go anywhere. They drive around in it to show off how "All Terrain" it truly is. They operate it with a remote control, on the questionably logic that remote control cars don't need licenses.
  • "The Fast and the Phineas" has Phineas and Ferb convert their mother's car into a race car, which Phineas then uses in an actual race. Their age is once again lampshaded, with the car once again being controlled via remote.
• Piggsburg Pigs!: The title pigs drive around in motor vehicles. In fact, the episode "Vampire Dogs of Mars" actually has Pighead and Portley stopping at a gas station to fuel up their car.
• PJ Masks: All three of the Masks have their own signature vehicles, while nighttime villain Romeo drives a mobile lab shaped approximately like a street-sweeper.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In "Super Zeroes", Blossom decides to imitate her favorite comic book superheroine and adopts a Cool Car called the "Morality Mobile" as her method of transport. She gets stuck in traffic and ends up being too late to stop a monster attack.
• Ready Jet Go!: On Bortron 7, flying saucers are treated as cars. Jet builds and flies his own little saucer starting in "What Goes Up...", and Zerk can drive too. Jet and Zerk are both children, and they can drive presumably because Bortron 7 has different driving laws than any country on Earth.
• ReBoot: Enzo Matrix has driven a vehicle while he was still a young sprite. In the game Formula One, Enzo rebooted and drove a race car through the first lap of the course. He raced with his older sister, Dot. In the second lap, he tried to drive a hovercraft but it was taken over by Dot. Neither of them competed in the third and final lap, which involved racing in jets.
• The Simpsons
  • A flashback in "War of the Simpsons" shows Bart as a toddler starting the car and almost running over the babysitter.
  • The plot of "Bart on the Road" has Bart and some of his friends using a fake drivers license to drive across the country.
  • When Milhouse begins impersonating his father, one of the first things he does is rent a truck and drive it. He then crashes it... and goes to rent another truck.
  • In "Little Big Girl", Bart steals every fire extinguisher in Springfield Elementary to propel his wagon. As Bart rockets around town, the foam released from the extinguishers puts out a wildfire the townspeople of Springfield unsuccessfully try to extinguish. Bart is cheered as a hero by everyone and rewarded (at his own request) with a driver's license by Mayor Quimby, leading him to use Homer's car for his own pleasure. Being a legal driver proves less thrilling than his previous illegal escapades, however, as he's quickly forced to run errands for the entire family. Because of his legitimate-yet-underage license, this justifies all non-flashback examples of Bart driving from mid-Season 18 onwards.
  • Maggie gets behind the wheel in "Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie", crashing into the prison and letting prisoners run free. This leads to Bart getting punished and not being allowed to see the movie.
  • A brief gag in "Sideshow Bob Roberts": Lisa tells Homer she's tired of listening to right-wing pundit Birch Barlow. Homer tells her that when she drives she can listen to what she wants to. Cut to Lisa driving while listening to "St. Elmo's Fire", only to switch back because Homer doesn't like the song.
  • The episode "Barthood" shows Grampa teaching Bart to drive from a young age, with Bart sitting on Grampa's lap steering while Grampa works the pedals. Later Bart tries to show Lisa that he can drive Homer's car, however because he's too short to both reach the pedals and steer effectively he ends up smashing the car through the kitchen wall.
  • In "Brawl in the Family", Marge has twisted her "driving ankle", just as she was attempting to rescue Homer from wild animals.
    Marge: Bart, I know this sounds crazy, but do you think you could drive a car?
    Bart: Okay... but it's my first time.
    Marge: Here's my keys.
    Bart: I've got a set.
  • In "Half-Decent Proposal", Marge drives Bart, Lisa and Milhouse to school. Eventually, she falls asleep and then falls out of the car. Bart immediately takes control of the steering wheel while Lisa and Milhouse push the gas and break pedals.
  • In "Homer's Paternity Coot," Homer has a series of flashbacks to his childhood being raised by Abe. One shows Homer as a very young child, playing a game in which he jumps to catch Abe's keys. Abe finally lets him have them only for Homer to run outside, start the car and back it out.
  • In "Burns' Heir", Bart drives a sports car given to him by Mr. Burns who can barely see over the steering wheel hitting several objects before driving through Santa's Village.
  • In "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer", Bart hijacks the school bus to drop everyone to school when Otto attempt to give Metallica a ride while stranded roadside.
  • In "Beware My Cheating Bart", Bart takes Shauna Chalmers for a romantic drive in the middle of a montage. Chief Wiggum sees this happening, and lets Ralph drive the police car in order to apprehend them. Ralph immediately drives into a tree.
• Happens in South Park:
  • Occasionally, the four main boys drive automobiles.
  • Stan drove his dad's car and a bus.
  • Cartman drives a NASCAR race car in "Poor and Stupid".
  • Happens in the special "Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers". Pete steals a car, belonging to Henriette's mother, and drives it to Troubled Acres. He is accompanied by Firkle, a group of the Vampire Society and the spirit of Edgar Allen Poe.
• Steven Universe:
  • Downplayed in "Lars and the Cool Kids": In an emergency, Lars (who's apparently old enough to drive, though not necessarily licensed) takes the wheel of Jenny's delivery car, but doesn't know how to drive stick, so Steven takes over that part. Steven's shifting it so bad Lars may well have tried it himself, but they reach their destination in time regardless.
  • In "Beach City Drift", Steven and Connie go for a joyride in Greg's new car, fusing to form Stevonnie so they'll look old enough and be tall enough to drive. Stevonnie turns out to be an amazing driver (which one of the show's crew jokingly attributed to "video games") and gets the car back undamaged. Later, in "Lars of the Stars", Stevonnie is able to pilot a Space Fighter with a similar level of skill because the cockpit is based on a car's.
• I.Q. Ickly is a pint-sized (presumably similar aged) competitor in the Wacky Races reboot. He has been considered a place card for original series driver Pat Pending.

Real Life

• The trope is Truth in Television in many developing countries, where driving regulations, though exist, are not as strictly followed. This is especially prevalent in Asia, where nobody bats an eye when 12 year olds drive motorcycles or even cars. In fact, some parents encourage their kids to drive by themselves as soon as they can, seeing it as a Rite of Passage and to lessen the burden of having to drive them, licenses be damned. The fact that public transportation is often lacking doesn't help.
• In the United States, kids as young as 10 are allowed to drive farm vehicles on private land. In rural areas, middle school-aged children routinely drive ATVs, farm trucks, snowmobiles, tractors and the like which greatly resemble cars. This trope gets zigzagged at times too. In many jurisdictions, said minors can still be prosecuted under certain conditions such as driving while intoxicated, driving without insurance, reckless driving, etc.
  • This is also the case in Canada, albeit perhaps unofficially.
• Being that he's no other than the son of former WRC driver Harri Rovanperä, rally driver Kalle Rovanperä gained notoriety on the internet for taking up rallying at just eight years old! Kalle Rovanperä formally competed in his early teens in Latvia where a driver's licence isn't required for motorsports events, with his co-driver Risto Pietiläinen having to take the wheel between stages. The Finnish traffic safety agency eventually granted Rovanperä a special exemption for him to apply for a licence a year early than the legal driving age, effectively opening the door for him to enter the World Rally Championship, where in 2020 he made his championship debut under Toyota Gazoo Racing after his successful stint at Škoda's WRC2 factory team. He since became the youngest ever World Rally champion at the age of 22, breaking the previous record set by the late Colin McRae who won his sole driver's championship when he was 27.
• Formula One driver Max Verstappen made headlines when Scuderia Toro Rosso announced that they have signed him for the 2015 season to become the teammate of Carlos Sainz Jr. This in itself doesn't seem to weird... until you realized that when Max first drove a Formula One car during the first free practice session of the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix, he's only 17 years and 3 days old at the time and the previous youngest driver, Spanish Jamie Alguersuari, was 19 when he made his Formula One debut. In fact, the 2014 racing season is Max's first year of experience in non-karting racing categories. Verstappen is so young, FIA had to raise the Super License age limit to 18 to prevent a similar case to happen again. Thus, unless the rules were changed in the future, Verstappen is going to forever hold the record for the youngest person to have ever started a Formula One race.
• There was the notorious 7-year old Latarian Milton who in 2008 took his grandmother's SUV for a joyride, then hit a dozen parked cars at a Walmart parking lot and ultimately destroyed the SUV itself by driving off a curb that was thick enough to snap the front axle off. The police say he was too short to see over the steering wheel. As of today, Latarian's status is unknown but he is keeping a low profile since 2018 when he was arrested and incarcerated for armed robbery of a Lyft driver.
• In 2020, a 5-year-old boy swiped his parents' SUV. He attempted to drive it from his home in Utah, to California so he could buy a Lamborghini. He was pulled over by a police officer on the Utah highway. The boy was returned home, along with the stolen SUV. There weren't any charges against him or his family.
• An 11 year old boy saw his grandmother getting faint, and drove her home for her meds. Luckily, it was just a short drive through a residential area and he'd already had some experience rearranging cars in the driveway under his grandfather's supervision, so he managed to get them home without any problems.
• A 5 year old boy took his grandmother's car for a ride early one morning; he crashed into a parked car and airbags deployed at 200 mph, killing him.
• The infamous case of an 8-year-old driving his 4-year-old sister to McDonalds after watching Youtube videos on driving. Miraculously, he managed to make it all the way there without incident, after which the police picked them up and took them home.
• A recurring news when it comes to carjacking crimes involving underage teenagers whether armed carjacking or breaking and entering cars when many cases are just for joyriding.
• In California, children under the legal driving age can operate motor vehicles such as full-sized automobiles in a controlled area as long as they have an approved supervisor overseeing their efforts. This is what allowed Cannan Huey-You to drive a car with duct tape tires in the first episode of MythBusters jr, as he had Adam Savage overseeing his efforts.

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