Family drove 100 miles before realizing they’d left toddler at service station

It took the parents 100 miles and nearly 45 minutes before they realised their mistake.

A family on holiday drove nearly 100 miles before realising they had left their three-year-old daughter at a motorway lay-by.

The family, who are French, had stopped at a rest area off the A7 Autoroute du Solei near Loriol while en route to the French Riviera on Sunday, but when they departed they forgot their toddler.
They were almost 100 miles away when they heard an alert on the radio that a child had been found and realised it was their daughter.

The toddler had been found by other holidaymakers at the service station, but all she could tell them was that they were ‘going to the seaside’ and ‘Daddy’s car had pulled away.
‘The family had passed Aix-en-Provence and were going towards Saint-Raphaël and none of them had noticed she wasn’t there,’ a gendarme said.
‘We are going to listen to what they have to say and talk to the prosecutor at Valence to see if this should be taken further.’
The girl was reunited with her family, who had turned the car around and retraced their journey back to the service station.