Hit and Run

[michael_aos]

Driving South on I-25 today at about 2:30pm, was hit by a large red Dodge pickup. I think it was a Nevada license plate DVL-ISHS. Decided he wanted to be in my lane.

Took out the turn-signal and dented up the quarter panel. I think it was his tire / bumper that caught me, so not much damage to his vehicle.

Kept right on going.

:-(

Probably at about Pueblo by now.

http://homepage.mac.com/michael_aos/.Pictures/IMG_5881.jpg

[chain.60]

You did make a report didn"t you ? :evil:

[michael_aos]

You did make a report didn"t you ? :evil:

I stopped by the Sand Creek police station and got a traffic-accident report.

I have to fill it out and mail it in though.

There's a link to http://crash.state.co.us, but I haven't checked it out yet.

[michael_aos]

Turns out you can't file hit-and-run online.

Called the CO State Patrol -- was sort of hoping they'd be on the lookout or something.

But the accident was within City Limits, so its back to CSPD.

Mike

[AR Will]

My sister had a hit and run right in front of my house. It took the awhile for the police to respond the person was long gone. We never got any further than that. Police report filed, $500 deductable paid :evil: .........


I hope you find out who hit you, if you're lucky they can catch them and its a felony.

[Ice Pirate]

I was down in the Springs last Saturday. My nephew just got stationed down there and we went shooting at DM's. On the way home, almost got T-Boned by some Ditz who ran a red light. As it was I saw her just in time and she just grazed my front bumper. Lost my plate holder and cracked the grill. She stopped, and so did 4 others who saw the whole thing and wanted to give their stories to the cops.

I get my truck fixed on Tuesday, free of charge. Yes there is a God, and at least 4 folks who believe in doing the right thing.

Good luck with yours Michael.

[michael_aos]

An RE/MAX agent happened to see the whole thing and stopped. Gave me her card.

There are good people out there.

It's a "beater" car and I only have liability insurance. It's not a huge deal.

Just makes me mad that the guy did it on-purpose and then just drove away.

:evil:

Mike

[michael_aos]

It hadn't occurred to me at the time, but my wife suggested

DVL-ISHS could be a vanity-plate.

Mike

[Marlin]

In the immortal words of Arfcom, You should've drawn down. heh, heh.

2000, Broncos-Raiders were playing, I was upstairs when I heard a crash. Looked out the window and some Idiot was parked in My truck. Called the cops and grabbed the camera and went down,by the time I got there He was trying to push the car out of My truck, I started to take pictures of Him, the car, the plates anything I could think of. About this time He asks Me if I would help him push the car. Because He was late for work. :roll: I was dumbfounded, I just told him to wait for the police.

I thought He was going to start crying, about that time the cops show up, said other than noteing it down for the insurance,there wasn't anything He could do, Private property. The story I got was He was trying to push start it because of a dead battery.

At the time I had My truck Brand new, not even a scratch in it yet, for about 6 weeks. He had some junker that makes Karl's look like a Rolls Royce. My bed was so damaged that They had to replace the whole thing. His, if it got a scratch I couldn't tell.

[AR Will]

In the immortal words of Arfcom, You should've drawn down. heh, heh.

I've thought the same but showed restriant........I was run off the road coming back from the range, thought about flippin a U to go after the punk. I wonder if they think "hey maybe that guy has a small arsenal in his car, I should drive like I know what I'm doing". hmmmm..... I geus they could'nt see the NRA and RMGO stickers head on. (Runs outside to put more stickers on front of truck).

[michael_aos]

You know, it's sort of funny.

I'm wondering what I "should have done". I mean, I suppose I could have chased him. Tried to follow him to Nevada or something.

I wish I'd had a cell-phone, although its hard to say if any LEO's would have been available.

Yes, I was armed. Interestingly, that adds an element of calmness and serenity.

Mike

[michael_aos]

Usually I see a bunch of "Kerry for president" and rainbow stickers on Subaru's.

I've got a whole stack of NRA, RMGO, CSSA and misc cool stickers.

My original plan was to plaster the whole car with them. "An armed society is a polite society", etc.

But I was concerned about the implications of having that stuff on my car during a routine traffic stop. Like not having a blinker.

[roll]

So nothing so far.

Mike

[chrisguy]

Sorry to hear it man, but thumbs-up for keeping a cool head. Here's hoping they can track the plate/vehicle from your description.

[pickenup]

That sucks.
Hope they catch whoever did this.

[michael_aos]

I've pretty much resigned myself to that fact that they'll never catch him and that the damage to his vehicle was negligible.

:evil:

Mike

[Scott]

That sucks. I had a lady hit me and keep going on 287 nb. I ended up following her and she just went right on to work as if nothing ever happened. I called CSP and reported her and they took care of it.

[michael_aos]

Any opinions on the RIGHT way to handle this sort of situation?

Gut-reaction is to chase, but that doesn't seem like such a good idea when you think it through.

I didn't have a cell-phone.

What should you do?

Mike

[KarlPMann]

Personally, I always have a cel phone and a gun. I'd followed him and called po-po. Karl.

[michael_aos]

Yeah, I'm wondering now if maybe I should have followed him a little.

I had it in my head at the time that the Nevada plates meant they were driving to Nevada.

In retrospect, it could just have easily been local military with out-of-state plates.

Mike

[Caliber357]

I-25, N. Air Force entrance: 80 mph traffic comes to a grinding halt without warning, and we all slam on our brakes. About eight feet behind me, I hear tires squealing, and suddenly I'm through the bumper of the guy in front of me. Some old bag in a Windstar had plowed into my back end at roughly 70 mph. (that's about what I figure she had to be going, considering how far back she was from me when we were all still going 80, and factoring in how late in the game she threw on the skids.) Amazingly, nothing happened to my front end, and the guy in front of me just lost a tail light. My spare tire (I drive a '99 Wrangler) absorbed almost all of the impact (aside from some light rear bumper denting) and turned her entire front end into a steaming mess. It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. Here I am sandwiched between this big-ass SUV, and a minivan going 70, and I barely got a scratch. Didn't even pop or bend my tire!! Anyway, she wrote a check out to the guy in front of me (I'd love to know if he collected on it or not.) and I told her since her car was FUBAR, and mine was basically ok, I'd let her off the hook.

In retrospect, I probably should have called the cops anyway, just to cover my butt, but I figure that had to count for something in the nice-guy department. ;)

P.S. Just throwing my two cents in to the "should I have followed him" discussion (and I'm not trying to sound like a know-it-all, or put anybody down - this is just my personal opinion.) I'd say you're better off not - unless you've already made a concious decision that you're prepared to follow through with violence if things escalate. If you're following him just because you feel safe that a gun's in the car, you'd better be prepared to follow through and use it on him. Because following him, chances are it'll come to that. I'm not making any judgements about the usage of the gun. In general, I don't think that thinning out a good 60% of the current world population would be a bad thing. I just think you'd have to make that decision and be comfortable with it before you followed him.

Like I said, not trying to preach, not putting you down - just my opinion.

[michael_aos]

Yeah, I honestly didn't really think about pursuing him at the time. Not sure why not.

I haven't priced it yet, but I'm guessing maybe $50-$100 for the blinker assembly & misc.

Not too concerned about the dent. It's my "beater" car. Might try and get a friend to pull it out, or try pounding it out a little from the inside so the blinker assembly will fit.

I had a hard enough time sleeping last night the way it was. If I wound up in a shootout over some stupid traffic incident I'd be a wreck.

Mike

[Richard K]

It's diffcult to prosecute even if he is found unless you can I.D. the driver.

[Richard K]

Asha'man,

Let's see, no plate number, no driver description. What would you expect the follow-up to be, track down every vehicle manufactured that fit that description? How many of your model and color were manufactured? I have a unique and rare car made only one year, still there were 2,000 made in my color. Suppose they did get lucky after tracking down thousands of vehicles, found a car matching the description that had front end damage and contacted the driver and questioned him. Were you envolved in an accident on such and such a date? Nope. Where was your car on that date? In my driveway, must have been taken for a joyride and returned. I saw the damage to my front end but thought I was a victim of a hit-and-run in some parking lot or, I had a friend of a friend fly in from out of state and I loaned him my car, didn't notice the damage until he flew back home. I have no idea how to contact him, or yes I've got front end damage, I hit a guard rail, no damage to the guard rail so I didn't report it. Man, those cops sure were lazy, weren't they.

[Asha'man]

I thought we had stoplight cameras for a reason. Would it have been too terribly difficult to take a look at the footage from a couple of those downstream from my accident and look for a maroon late-model S10 ZR2 4x4 with front-end damage? Alert area bodyshops? Keep an eye out at least? I did not get the impression that any of this had been done, so forgive me when I say that my impression of the police effort on this case is that there was none.

Brian