Woman Fakes Labor to Evade Police

A car speeds through a New Zealand mountain highway. The police pursue, chasing her through winding roads, clocking her at over 90 mph.  The driver ignores police signals, lights, and sirens, and the officers get ready to put down road spikes to end the chase. A scene from the latest summer blockbuster film? Actually, this one is straight out of the headlines of The New Zealand Herald.

In this case, when the car pulled over, the driver pointed to the passenger side, where a 23-year-old woman with her feet spread on the dash, claimed to be in labor. The expectant father looked on from the back seat.

After being taken to the hospital by ambulance, the woman (who was determined to be seven-and-a-half months pregnant) discharged herself and fled in a waiting car, which then sped off through red lights. Police later stopped the car and arrested the driver, a 23-year-old man, for dangerous driving-related charges.

Of course, pregnant women have been accused of using pregnancy as an excuse to get away with everything from scarfing down an entire tray of caramel brownies to demanding foot massages at 4 A.M., but this seems to take pregnancy-blaming to a whole new level. 

Do you think pregnancy is a viable excuse for behaving badly? Where do you draw the line? What’s the strangest behavior you’ve blamed on pregnancy?