[0167] (47 lines) Lippard.Multics 12/08/87  1513.4 mst Tue misc
Subject:  A car, a girl and the open road
Wagon driven by 'Invisible Man' turns officer's head

The New York Times
   NEW YORK--Sometimes a guy like Rocco Morabito just feels like hitting
the road.
   So, on Friday at about 7 a.m., the young man from Port Chester, N.Y.,
borrowed his mom's car, picked up his baby sister and, in the best
tradition of the American hero, set off down the highway.
   His only problem was seeing over the steering wheel.
   Two and a half miles from his home, Rocco was pulled over by a police
officer concerned that Rocco's tan Buick station wagon, which was obeying all
traffic rules, appeared to be driverless.
   "It looked like the Invisible Man was driving that car," said Anthony J.
Schembri, the police commissioner of Rye, where the car was stopped.
   Officer Robert P. Vogel caught up with Rocco's car, which was maneuvering
through rush-hour traffic on Midland Avenue at about 20 miles an hour.
   "I observed that the car was being driven pretty well," he said.  "But all
I could see was a small girl standing in the back seat.
   "What was running through my mind was, 'Do I turn on my lights and siren?
Do I pull in front and try to stop it?'"
   Finally, Vogel said, he tried the lights and siren, "and the car pulls over
to the curb, in perfect accordance with the laws of New York state."
   Rocco, 5, wearing pajamas and sneakers, and his 2-year-old sister, Brandy,
in just a pajama top, began to cry.  Rocco climbed out without disengaging the
car's engine, forcing Vogel to reach into the rolling vehicle and take it out
of gear.
   As the police put it together, Rocco's mother was ill, and his father was
working when the youngster took the keys from his mother's purse, which was
atop the family's refrigerator, then opened a locked garage door and backed
the station wagon down a narrow, 80-foot driveway bounded by a house and a
fence.
   Brandy followed Rocco and was taken for a ride only after an argument,
Vogel said.
   Police said Rocco had pulled the automatic seat all the way forward and, at
about 3 feet tall, could just touch the accelerator.
   The young motorist's run-in with the police did not dim his love for the
road.
   "I told them their mommy would have to come get them," Vogel said, "but the
kids says, 'My mommy can't come here, because I have the only car.  I can
drive.  I'll go get her.'"
   Outside the Morabito house, a woman who said she was Rocco's
great-grandmother said her sons--the boy's grandfather and great-uncle--had
driven the family car when they were just 6 or 7 years old.
   Before she could speak more or give her name, a family member told her not
to talk to reporters.
   A neighbor, Shawna Montalvan, said she had seen Rocco on his grandfather's
lap as the grandfather drove.
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