YouTube, depository of all earthly wisdom, fails footage, and cat clips, is great for learning, but it has its limits.
While online tutorials can help you perfect scrambled eggs or guide your next knitting project, when it comes to driving a double decker bus, it’s probably best to get an actual license, rather than rely on Internet School.
Because, if you don’t, and proceed to anoint yourself a bus driver, there could be consequences, as learned by this 17-year-old, according to a report by Headline Daily.
A bus enthusiast, the teen, named Leung Kwun-kit, was yesterday ordered to serve time in a detention center after stealing a double decker bus, driving it around, crashing it, and then fleeing the scene in May.
Though the punishment’s duration wasn’t reported, terms in the center — designed as an alternative from prison for 14 to 24 year olds — range between a minimum of one month and a maximum of six.
Together with his friend, Leung, who is in his fifth year of high school, broke into an 11C double decker bus parked inside the Lok Fu bus terminus at 2:30am in May.
He then drove it for about 10 minutes until it crashed near the Kwai Tsing container terminal, which is about 10 kilometers away, Headline Daily reports.
The pair then fled the scene. Leung, however, was caught after his teacher, possibly aware of his bus bent, sent him a WhatsApp message asking him if he was responsible.
Leung confessed that he was, indeed, involved. The teacher called the police.
While the Justice Department decided not to sue the defendant for damages, Leung, meanwhile pleaded guilty to several charges at Kowloon City Magistrates’ Court.
They included taking conveyance without authority, driving without a driving licence, using a vehicle without third party insurance, and failing to report an accident which involved damage.
The magistrate presiding over the case, in fact, appeared intrigued, albeit skeptical, of the defendant’s attempt to become a self-taught bus driver by watching clips online, Apple Daily reported.
“After watching YouTube you thought you could do it?” Magistrate Daniel Tang Siu-hun asked.
“You could say that,” responded Leung, whose fascination with buses and his aspirations to one day drive them stemmed from this late father, the defense pointed out, adding their client felt being inside the public people movers was “comforting”.
The magistration, while acknowledging the emotional aspect, said it wasn’t an excuse to steal a bus.
“What if you broke your arms and legs? What would your mother do? You have no insurance, what if you injured or killed yourself? You think saying sorry is enough?” he enquired of the young defendant.
The magistrate then pivoted from rhetorical questions to sage advice, telling Leung to find a good job and look after his mother.
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