--- title: 8-Year-Old Drives to McDonald's description: An 8-year-old boy in Ohio watched YouTube videos to learn what to do behind the wheel, and then drove his father's van to McDonald's. canonical: https://time.com/4739181/8-year-old-mcdonalds-drive-thru-ohio/ author: Julia Zorthian article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-04-13T21:29:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:42:48.861Z og:title: 8-Year-Old Learns How to Drive on YouTube So He Can Hit Up the McDonald’s Drive-Thru og:description: The boy learned to drive on YouTube — then took his sister for a cheeseburger og:url: https://time.com/4739181/8-year-old-mcdonalds-drive-thru-ohio/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 8-Year-Old Learns How to Drive on YouTube So He Can Hit Up the McDonald’s Drive-Thru twitter:description: The boy learned to drive on YouTube — then took his sister for a cheeseburger twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # 8-Year-Old Casually Learns How to Drive on YouTube So He Can Hit Up the McDonald’s Drive-Thru > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Julia Zorthian](https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/)  ## Julia Zorthian Apr 13, 2017 9:29 PM UTC  by [Julia Zorthian](https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/)  ## Julia Zorthian Apr 13, 2017 9:29 PM UTC An 8-year-old boy in Ohio watched YouTube videos to learn what to do behind the wheel — and then [drove his father’s van to McDonald’s.](http://www.weirtondailytimes.com/news/local-news/2017/04/young-driver-gets-help-from-youtube/) The boy brought his 4-year-old sister along for the ride on Sunday night and reportedly obeyed traffic laws, according to witnesses. Once he got to the [McDonald’s](http://time.com/4453092/mcdonalds-rio-olympic-village-2016-olympics/) drive-thru, he ordered a cheeseburger and tried to pay with money from his piggybank, the Weirton _Daily Times_ reports. “The workers thought that the parents were in the back, but obviously they weren’t,” responding patrolman Jacob Koehler told the _Daily Times_. “He didn’t hit a single thing on the way there. It was unreal.” The children’s parents were reportedly sleeping at home after spending the day outside as a family. The boy started crying when he realized he shouldn’t have driven the car, but said he just really [wanted a cheeseburger](http://www.wfmj.com/story/35131203/east-palestine-police-8-year-old-drives-4-year-old-sister-to-get-cheeseburger), Koehler told the _Daily Times_. Koehler added that the kids had three meals that day. Both children still got to eat McDonald’s while they waited at the police station for their parents. No charges were filed. \[[_Weirton Daily Times_](http://www.weirtondailytimes.com/news/local-news/2017/04/young-driver-gets-help-from-youtube/)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4739181/8-year-old-mcdonalds-drive-thru-ohio/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4739181/8-year-old-mcdonalds-drive-thru-ohio/"},"headline":"8-Year-Old Casually Learns How to Drive on YouTube So He Can Hit Up the McDonald’s Drive-Thru","datePublished":"2017-04-13T21:29:52.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:42:48.861Z","description":"The boy learned to drive on YouTube — then took his sister for a cheeseburger","url":"https://time.com/4739181/8-year-old-mcdonalds-drive-thru-ohio/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Food & Drink","U.S.","Mcdonald's","driving","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Julia Zorthian","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4739181/8-year-old-mcdonalds-drive-thru-ohio/","name":"8-Year-Old Casually Learns How to Drive on YouTube So He Can Hit Up the McDonald’s Drive-Thru"}}]}] ```