Bear Takes Family's Prius on Joyride

Bears getting stuck in honeypots: old news. A bear getting stuck in a 2002 Toyota Prius, then managing to make it roll down the driveway: definitely new news, at least for one California family. They woke up around 3:30am on Aug. 28 to find a bear wedged inside the car, which had been parked in the driveway of their west Lake Tahoe cabin. The Contra Costa Times reports that the frustrated bear was unable to get out and did a number on the car in its efforts to do so, tearing open the seats, taking a bite out of the steering wheel, and ... shifting the car into neutral.

The move sent the Prius rolling down the sloped driveway; it eventually hopped a small rock wall and stopped after crashing into the steps of a neighboring home's porch. "We were looking out of our bedroom window and from our view, you could look down and see the bear in the car, and its arms were just flailing all over the place, through the windows and everything," says Brian McCarthy, 61, who notes that the car was totally closed and had no food in it. The bear ultimately did get itself out of the sticky situation and fled into the woods. (More Lake Tahoe stories.)