Man takes car on 2,000 mile test drive
Thu Mar 6, 2008 11:05am EST

CANBERRA (Reuters) - An Australian who took a new car on a 3,200 km (1,988 mile) six-day test drive from the city to the outback has been arrested, police said on Thursday.

The 30-year-old convinced a car dealer in the southeastern city of Melbourne to lend him a A$40,000 ($37,000) Honda Accord sedan last Friday and drove the equivalent of London to Istanbul before he was arrested near the town of Tennant Creek, deep in the outback of the Northern Territory.

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He said the man was arrested without incident at a road block on his way north to Darwin after he failed to pay for fuel at a hamlet.

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Melbourne car yard owner Ian McKenzie said the man would have had to have been in the car all day, every day to reach Tennant Creek.

"He seemed a legitimate gentleman. He stood at the desk right in front of a camera. He wasn't afraid of being photographed or videoed," McKenzie told the Herald Sun newspaper.

The man was charged with aggravated unlawful use of a motor vehicle and unlawful possession of property and will appear in court on Thursday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0623312120080306

Had this occurred in Texas, no UUMV because the owner allowed the person to drive the car, correct? Whether the extent of the test drive exceeded the scope of the consent is a civil matter (contract dispute), it seems to me. I suppose the effective consent element could be attacked if there was evidence that consent was obtained by fraud, but given the burden of proof....

NO, in Texas this would be a perfectly prosecutable crime. No reasonable person could believe he had consent to take the car that for or for that long on a test drive. Therefore, there is no reasonable doubt that the defendant knew he was exceeding the scope of the consent. I say put another shrimp on the barbie!