Pretoria nursery school teacher fined for 19 kids in tiny car

A nursery school teacher in Pretoria, South Africa was stopped and fined by police, for cramming 19 preschool children into a small hatch-back car. 

Last week, Melanie Minnie, a teacher at Rietfontein Nursery School in Pretoria, decided to take the children in her care on an outing. 

Police were alerted by a concerned citizen, who first spotted Minnie parking at a local shopping center, unloading 12 children from her car. 

 She apparently left the kids at a play area and went back to the nursery school, about a mile away, to collect 19 more. 

She was then pulled over by Tshwane metro police, who found she had 19 children in the car. 

The preschool children, whose ages ranged from 4 to 6, were crammed into the front, back and trunk area of Minnie's Renault Clio, a small hatch-back car. According to the Afrikaans newspaper, Die Beeld, five of the children were in the car's trunk, at least three were on the front seat and the remaining 10 were crammed into the back of the car. 

Photos of the car, crammed with its young occupants, can be viewed here and here. 

Minnie was reportedly “startled” to get pulled over by police. The Citizen quotes Minnie as saying, "It was the first and the last time that we'll go on an outing... we're actually a very cute school." Minnie was fined 1,500 rand, or slightly under $175. 

There are currently no reports as to the parents' reactions to this incident.

Original source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/334916