Published: December 11, 2006 12:28 pm            

So this is what being a parent is like...

PLEASANTON, Calif. — The perils of parenting apparently can be discovered through a classroom project.

A startled 17-year-old girl swerved her car into a freeway guardrail and slammed into a pickup truck after the realistic-sounding baby doll in her care suddenly began to cry.

The teenager had just picked up the doll as part of a school project on responsible parenting minutes before the accident occurred Tuesday on I-580, said Steve Creel, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.

The educational doll cries and wets itself and has a recording device that monitors how long it takes the doll’s “parent” to respond to its crying.

The girl, whose named was not released because of her age, was driving around 65 miles per hour in a Mini Cooper when the fake baby sprang to tears, causing her to crash into the guardrail and swerve back onto the freeway where she hit a Ford F-350 pickup truck.

“When officers arrived, she was still caring for the baby,” Creel said.

No one was seriously injured in the crash, but the CHP will pursue charges because the girl was driving without a license, he said.

        

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