Police: 'Not okay' to put child in the trunk

Police in Berlin were far from impressed by one shopper's innovative approach to the puzzle of packing bulky furniture into his family car.

The 47-year-old, who had bought a cupboard, found the item was just a little too big to fit in his modestly sized Opel Zafira. Stumped for solutions, he asked his son to crawl into the trunk, holding onto the cupboard between his legs and keeping the tailgate down with his hand.

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Police checking the speed of cars from their patrol car spotted a small hand emerging from the trunk of a car on their video screen. Puzzled by what they had seen, the traffic officers flagged down the vehicle and found the 15-year-old boy in the back.

The father, when challenged over his novel-yet-hazardous approach to problem-solving, was unapologetic. "It's okay like that, too," he said.

'Irresponsible behavior'

The Berlin police department disagreed. Determined to get their message across, police took to Facebook and Twitter to highlight the story using the hashtag #gehtnicht — meaning "not okay."

"You just have to think about what the consequences could have been in the event of emergency braking," a police spokeswoman told the Die Welt newspaper. "It's irresponsible."

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Facebook responses varied from the mildly amused — "A normal trip home from Ikea" and "typical Berlin" — to the indignant. "How could somebody put their child in so much danger?" wrote one user.

The driver was issued two fines — 60 euros for his son being in the trunk and without a seat belt, plus a 35-euro penalty for failing to secure the contents of the vehicle properly — as well as a point on his license.