BMW X5 and caravan touring

[Watis]

This story is astonishing enough - an 11 year old lad was caught towing a caravan down the M1:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-y ... e-68513071

Which reminded me - despite being a big, beefy car, the X5 requires upgrades to the ECU, suspension and braking systems before it's ready to tow. Some details here:

https://g05.bimmerpost.com/forums/showt ... ?t=1794169

I wonder if the X5 in question had these modifications?

Watis

[Gerry557]

I wonder if he thought the policeman looked "old"

[bungeejumper]

Tired old cynic that I am, I reckon it's an organised crime operation. (The multiple cloned plates in the car suggest such a likelihood.) Get a minor to do the deed, and the law can hardly touch him.

We had a similar thing happening in Brum, where I was teaching in the 1970s. The teenagers of the family in question would steal the motorbikes and get them out of the way, and their parents would load them swiftly into transit vans, and by the time the vans reached Yorkshire they'd mysteriously lost their VIN numbers and all their ID markings.

Good police work, though. That's one very lucky caravan owner.

BJ

[DrFfybes]

I would wonder how a lad of that age knew how to connect up and tow a caravan. but that's probably racist these days.

Paul

[Gerry557]

I did wonder if the police just kept hold of the lad and waited for him to be announced as missing, if the would have had a better result.

I can't see an eleven year old connecting up a van and doing the plates. They shudda got a team of police secretly hidden in the van and let the boy go. They could jump out at the end and shout surprise!

[Redmires]

The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is 10 years old. This means that children under 10 can’t be arrested or charged with a crime.

The parents slipped up there. They need to train up their kids to learn to drive a couple of years younger.