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A stroppy teenager who didn’t like his parents choice of music on the family’s car radio sparked a kidnap alert on a German motorway near Kaiserslautern.

Like millions of youngsters the 15 year-old boy didn’t fancy a long car journey having to listen to his parents’ choice of 1960s hits including The Beatles and Tom Jones.

So he secretly scribbled the word ‘Help’ and the car’s number on a piece of paper and dropped it out of the window as a joke.

(Image: Rex)

But a motorist following the family car saw the note falling on the road and stopped to recover it.

He feared that the writer had been kidnapped and phoned the police.

The armed cops set up a road-block and stopped the family’s car. Then with drawn guns they ordered the occupants to get out of the vehicle and be searched.

A police spokesman said: ”The little misunderstanding was soon cleared up and they continued their journey. But I would not have liked to be in the son’s shoes.”