I watched someone do that recently. Except they stopped their car, looked for any damage to their own car carefully, gave a fast glance at the parked car, got back in their own car, and drove off.
You know all that CSI/NCIS bullshit? They caught her on tape, middle aged white woman, black BMW 3, first three digits of license plate, could run all of those matches against GAP transactions from that time of day …
(Cue John Belushi)
But no!
Cops are too busy writing speeding tickets to generate revenue to stop for actual police work.
(Digression: $65k/year trooper in $50k cruiser with $12k in computers/electronics writing $100 speeding tickets. Makes sense to anyone?)
She could have been identified, but that would have involved work, and everyone is too busy for that
No one got hurt, so it’s considered a victimless crime, because we have insurance
Worst part? Took a week to get the car repaired, and a month later, was totaled and somebody T-boned her at an intersection Texting driver running a red light.
my partner on the ambulance ran into one while driving to the hospital while i was in the back. with a patient. not a serious case or anything. oddly, the patient was the first one to ask “is everyone alright?”
i backed into a police DARE car. with an ambulance.
@RiotDemon I was shocked to see the guys name and phone number. He wanted to pay out of pocket, but when he found out how much it was he gave me his insurance info. Guy has been really easy to work with luckily.
In 2nd grade, while leisurely riding down the street, I noticed a girl walking down the sidewalk on my left in my direction. While observing her, I ran into the back of a parked car. The fork on my bike broke at the crown, the front wheel flew off, and ball bearings rolled everywhere. I was unhurt, and the car’s bumper was unscathed.
Mom had to be rushed to the ER a couple weeks ago. Dad parked his truck in the ER lot. After a long, sleepless, terrifying night through which Mom survived, Dad was greeted with a smashed-in bumper when he returned to his truck. No note. Oh, and it was his employer’s truck so he paid to have it fixed out of pocket. Fun night.
I backed into my GF’s son’s parked truck once. It was a combination of infrequent events. He’s all growed up and on his own, and comes home maybe twice a year. The truck was just parked in a place we didn’t park in, and didn’t show in the rearview. I didn’t hurt his Tacoma at all - just hit the bumper. But it creased the panel in my Fit.
I more often (“always”) check all three mirrors now.
My mom’s car was hit twice that way in parking lots. She was in the drive aisle and folks backed up in the aisle without even looking that there’s A WHOLE CAR right behind them.
Last month, someone parked their front bumper ON the bumper on my truck. Luckily, theirs was plastic and mine was steel, so other than some scratches on my license plate frame, no damage. I took like 2 dozen pictures just in case, though – they were way over the line.
@f00l@narfcake@conandlibrarian
In many parking lots w/ diagonal orientation (mostly Walmart in my vicinity), it is quite easy to be backing out using rear-view mirrors AND camera, and still not be aware of another car backing out at the same time. KEY: looking straight to the rear (of the car) in this configuration (usually to make sure you’re not going to run over some poor pedestrian) does NOT have you facing to see the other vehicle also backing out. This has happened to me twice; luckily neither occasion resulted in any damage.
This past week (pre-election), I witnessed a car being slowly driven by an elderly gentleman rear end my across-the-street neighbor’s street-parked car. Apparently he had been looking around for houses to invest in, and took his eyes off the road.
I went over to see if he was okay, then helped him leave a note, take pictures of both vehicles, call his insurer (it was going to exceed any reasonable deductible), etc. While doing so, noticed the Make America Great Again sticker in his back window. Soon he was on his way.
I had described my house on the note, mentioning that I was a witness and had the guy’s insurance info. An hour later, I got a knock on the door, and my neighbor (who I had not met up until this point) was standing there. In a Bernie 2016 t-shirt. This could get interesting!
While we were talking, the gentleman showed back up with his son. Who was wearing an NRA jacket.
I introduced the three, they took care of all details, managing to even crack a few jokes about the car situation, and everyone went civilly and politely on their way.
Actually gave me a little hope for the next 4 years.
A guy backed into my brand new Ford Fusion Hybrid. I had it for less than two weeks. I had recently parked in the parking lot of a shopping center. I was still in the car, getting my stuff together to go in the store. He backed his POS pick-up truck into my passenger side door and front fender, got his bumper stuck in my wheel well, put it in drive and burned rubber trying to dislodge his bumper from my wheel well. I jumped out of the car, started filming the whole thing with the iPhone. He saw me, stopped peeling out, jumped out of his truck and and told me he didn’t realize he had hit me. Thought his truck was “malfunctioning.” No insurance, no valid drivers license, not a citizen of the US, Cops couldn’t do anything. They were not allowed to detain him based on illegal status. This explains why your uninsured motorist premium is so expensive. Have a nice day!
@accelerator
I have been in minor accidents (being completely not at fault) where the person was uninsured or gave me what appeared to be phony insurance papers.
Cops uninterested, would only come for major road blockages and injuries.
Some insurance companies only have staff to take accident reports during biz hours. So no way to check if insurance is valid until the next day.
@carl669 Ummm, because he told me so. Said I couldn’t touch him because of such. True. Don’t have to be a citizen to be in US legally. I served in military with those who were not U.S. citizens. My son in law is not a U.S. citizen but is here legally to work. Many ways to not be a citizen and still be in the US legally. However, this person was not here legally. Typically, people who are in the US legally have followed the right steps to be here. That includes, usually, agreeing to comply with the laws of the US to include: maintain a drivers license, obtain insurance, and know and understand the laws associated with driving a motor vehicle, among all the other laws of the US.
Unfortunately in most jurisdictions events like this on private property leave you SOL. My wife backed into another car (that was also backing out at the same time) in a parking lot and when the police came to do a report it was basically just a “good luck with that, have a nice day” visit. They worked out between themselves, so it all worked out, but still…
At least your guy ‘manned up’ and left a note.
@chienfou I was thankful for that. I work on a college campus, and we have our own police force. The Lt. came out (as all the other officers were busy) and he called the guy. Luckily we do not see much crime on our campus, and they were able to help me much more than I expected.
My family has had 3 different cars hit while parked, one car twice. Had worse luck with parked cars then moving cars, go figure!
2 times a neighbor backing out of driveway (different neighbors, once at home and once at a friends). An idiot backing down the block after forgetting something at their friends house and side swiping into the back of my brothers 3 month old car before ending up parked in the side of the next car in line and finally a cab driver who “sneezed”, plowed into the car parked behind my car (totaling it) and pushing it into the bumper of my car parked in front. And people wonder why I try to park my car in the driveway now!
@elimanningface I was willing to settle without insurance until the guy heard how much it would cost. I was actually surprised by the cost as well, seems like my Prius is mostly plastic
Last car was a 2008 Subaru Tribeca, fully loaded. Had it for about 3 months, stopped after a softball game to visit a friend. Her apartment parking lot was long and not really all that narrow. Spaces were to the right with a wall down the left side that you could parallel park against. That’s where I was parked as we stood outside talking and watched a teenager start to back out of a spot perpendicular to my car. I knew instantly what was about to happen. He backed up straight into my rear quarter panel. Fortunately he was really apologetic and insured but they were never able to get the new bumper to fit as tightly to the fender as it had from the factory. I had it back from the shop for no more than about 2 weeks when stopped at a stop sign at the dead end of a road, waiting to turn right. Apparently the woman behind me saw the same break in oncoming cars and without even waiting for me to move, drove right into me. I still don’t feel sorry for the wrath I laid upon her for her stupidity. Topper was when her insurance company’s adjuster came to my job to look at it and wrote up an estimate of $75. Back to the same shop (a really high end place - seriously, check out the kind of cars they work on: http://www.cavalloautobody.com/home.php) where they removed the bumper and it turned into about $2000 worth of repairs.
I am Guilty of hitting a parked Car, twice actually…
the first time I still had my learners permit, mom in the passenger’s Seat, backing out of a parking space at the local music store(getting my trombone serviced, not a metaphor) I was wearing blue Blocker sunglasses, and there was a gold /champagne-ey colored caddy parked by itself, at the end of the row behind me. I honestly never saw it until the cars touched, it blended in with the coloration from the glasses that well.
I dented her quarter panel, no damage to mom’s chevy. the owner of the caddy turned out to be a teacher at a local elementary, with a few boys of her own, and she just shrugged it off, saying" if that’s the worst thing you do in a car, you’ll be fine."
second time was during finals my senior year. driving dad’s Aerostar, pulled into a parking spot with what i THOUGHT was plenty of clearance… not so much…I panicked, and pulled a few spots away. ( you couldn’t see the front of those vans from the driver’s seat, so it really was a bit of a guessing game if you had clearance or not.)
later that afternoon mom gets a call from the local PD about a hit and run at the school parking lot…
I have to go down to the station, make a report, but in the end, we both settled privately, not involving insurance.
Cost me $1200 to replace the rear bumper on someone’s mom’s Honda.
I’ve had my car hit multiple times while parked. Once was at the school I work at. Mom left a note, “my daughter was crying in the back seat and I turned my head around to look at her and accidently hit your car”
I called her back (she left her number) and ripped her a new one. Told her she’s lucky she didn’t hit a kid, not paying attention in a school zone, during morning drop-off traffic, and that she should lose her license. Had it not been in a school zone during morning drop-off traffic I would have let it go and said let’s settle this without insurance, but I rung her through insurance all the way. I was piiiiiiiissssssed. Not because she hit my parked car, accidents happen, but because she wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing in a school zone during morning drop-off.
Once when I worked at a fast food joint we parked our cars across from the drive through because of the neighborhood, saw a car come in the wrong way and try to park next to me. Needless to say she hit my car. Then she backed up and we saw her looking around, so I wrote down her tag number, and she took off. Called the cops because of the damage and as they were there writing up the report here she came back again and I pointed her out. She got a ticket for leaving the scene, claimed she did not know that she had hit my car. We both had the same insurance company so I thought it would be easy to resolve, but no… My agent had me do all of the work contacting her agent and getting the estimates, etc. What a pain. Don’t have them anymore.
Ugh.
I watched someone do that recently. Except they stopped their car, looked for any damage to their own car carefully, gave a fast glance at the parked car, got back in their own car, and drove off.
My wife has been hit 3x like that.
Not nicked, but seriously crashed into.
Last time, caught lady on tape. She got out, looked around, got back in, drove three rows over, ran into GAP, made a return, got in car and left.
@MehnofLaMehncha
Were you able to track her down? And if so, did you let her have it?
You know all that CSI/NCIS bullshit? They caught her on tape, middle aged white woman, black BMW 3, first three digits of license plate, could run all of those matches against GAP transactions from that time of day …
(Cue John Belushi)
But no!
Cops are too busy writing speeding tickets to generate revenue to stop for actual police work.
(Digression: $65k/year trooper in $50k cruiser with $12k in computers/electronics writing $100 speeding tickets. Makes sense to anyone?)
@MehnofLaMehncha
Never watched CSI/NCIS. (@therealjrn)
So in other words, your wife’s car got hit, the woman COULD be identified, and because the women could be identified, naturally she wasn’t.
Ugh.
@PlacidPenguin
She could have been identified, but that would have involved work, and everyone is too busy for that
No one got hurt, so it’s considered a victimless crime, because we have insurance
Worst part? Took a week to get the car repaired, and a month later, was totaled and somebody T-boned her at an intersection Texting driver running a red light.
Actually quite a bit easier than hitting a moving target
@matthew
Are you talking from experience, or making a (logical) assumption?
@matthew
Door gunner in Full Metal Jacket. "They ask me, how can I shoot women and children? Easy! You just don’t lead them as much.
my partner on the ambulance ran into one while driving to the hospital while i was in the back. with a patient. not a serious case or anything. oddly, the patient was the first one to ask “is everyone alright?”
i backed into a police DARE car. with an ambulance.
so… shit happens?
/giphy distracted
Did the note say more than “Sorry.”?
@RiotDemon I was shocked to see the guys name and phone number. He wanted to pay out of pocket, but when he found out how much it was he gave me his insurance info. Guy has been really easy to work with luckily.
@conandlibrarian you’re lucky!
A 6 pack of coronas and a couple of AMF’s?
In 2nd grade, while leisurely riding down the street, I noticed a girl walking down the sidewalk on my left in my direction. While observing her, I ran into the back of a parked car. The fork on my bike broke at the crown, the front wheel flew off, and ball bearings rolled everywhere. I was unhurt, and the car’s bumper was unscathed.
I hit a couple parked cars when I was 17 and not experienced enough to judge the size of my own car yet.
@katylava I hit the side of my garage door opening with my new SUV for the same reason.
Mom had to be rushed to the ER a couple weeks ago. Dad parked his truck in the ER lot. After a long, sleepless, terrifying night through which Mom survived, Dad was greeted with a smashed-in bumper when he returned to his truck. No note. Oh, and it was his employer’s truck so he paid to have it fixed out of pocket. Fun night.
I backed into my GF’s son’s parked truck once. It was a combination of infrequent events. He’s all growed up and on his own, and comes home maybe twice a year. The truck was just parked in a place we didn’t park in, and didn’t show in the rearview. I didn’t hurt his Tacoma at all - just hit the bumper. But it creased the panel in my Fit.
I more often (“always”) check all three mirrors now.
@sligett
I rented a car w a rearview camera pre-installed. V nice to have.
do people (lacking rearview cameras) not turn around to look in the direction of travel when backing up?
@no1 Yes.
My mom’s car was hit twice that way in parking lots. She was in the drive aisle and folks backed up in the aisle without even looking that there’s A WHOLE CAR right behind them.
Last month, someone parked their front bumper ON the bumper on my truck. Luckily, theirs was plastic and mine was steel, so other than some scratches on my license plate frame, no damage. I took like 2 dozen pictures just in case, though – they were way over the line.
@no1
In some vehicles turning around to look and using the rearview combined don’t show you much.
@f00l Yeah, the ass end of cars have gotten much bigger over the years.
@narfcake
Backing a cargo van is a slow business.
@f00l I drove a Dodge B350 maxi-van when I had my learner’s permit.
Unlike in Japan, I did NOT drive it like a race car.
/youtube dajiban
@f00l @narfcake @conandlibrarian
In many parking lots w/ diagonal orientation (mostly Walmart in my vicinity), it is quite easy to be backing out using rear-view mirrors AND camera, and still not be aware of another car backing out at the same time. KEY: looking straight to the rear (of the car) in this configuration (usually to make sure you’re not going to run over some poor pedestrian) does NOT have you facing to see the other vehicle also backing out. This has happened to me twice; luckily neither occasion resulted in any damage.
This past week (pre-election), I witnessed a car being slowly driven by an elderly gentleman rear end my across-the-street neighbor’s street-parked car. Apparently he had been looking around for houses to invest in, and took his eyes off the road.
I went over to see if he was okay, then helped him leave a note, take pictures of both vehicles, call his insurer (it was going to exceed any reasonable deductible), etc. While doing so, noticed the Make America Great Again sticker in his back window. Soon he was on his way.
I had described my house on the note, mentioning that I was a witness and had the guy’s insurance info. An hour later, I got a knock on the door, and my neighbor (who I had not met up until this point) was standing there. In a Bernie 2016 t-shirt. This could get interesting!
While we were talking, the gentleman showed back up with his son. Who was wearing an NRA jacket.
I introduced the three, they took care of all details, managing to even crack a few jokes about the car situation, and everyone went civilly and politely on their way.
Actually gave me a little hope for the next 4 years.
@TracerSpiff And then today happened…
A guy backed into my brand new Ford Fusion Hybrid. I had it for less than two weeks. I had recently parked in the parking lot of a shopping center. I was still in the car, getting my stuff together to go in the store. He backed his POS pick-up truck into my passenger side door and front fender, got his bumper stuck in my wheel well, put it in drive and burned rubber trying to dislodge his bumper from my wheel well. I jumped out of the car, started filming the whole thing with the iPhone. He saw me, stopped peeling out, jumped out of his truck and and told me he didn’t realize he had hit me. Thought his truck was “malfunctioning.” No insurance, no valid drivers license, not a citizen of the US, Cops couldn’t do anything. They were not allowed to detain him based on illegal status. This explains why your uninsured motorist premium is so expensive. Have a nice day!
@accelerator uhhh… you don’t have to be a US citizen to be here legally. i’m also curious how you know he wasn’t a US citizen.
@accelerator
I have been in minor accidents (being completely not at fault) where the person was uninsured or gave me what appeared to be phony insurance papers.
Cops uninterested, would only come for major road blockages and injuries.
Some insurance companies only have staff to take accident reports during biz hours. So no way to check if insurance is valid until the next day.
@carl669 Ummm, because he told me so. Said I couldn’t touch him because of such. True. Don’t have to be a citizen to be in US legally. I served in military with those who were not U.S. citizens. My son in law is not a U.S. citizen but is here legally to work. Many ways to not be a citizen and still be in the US legally. However, this person was not here legally. Typically, people who are in the US legally have followed the right steps to be here. That includes, usually, agreeing to comply with the laws of the US to include: maintain a drivers license, obtain insurance, and know and understand the laws associated with driving a motor vehicle, among all the other laws of the US.
Unfortunately in most jurisdictions events like this on private property leave you SOL. My wife backed into another car (that was also backing out at the same time) in a parking lot and when the police came to do a report it was basically just a “good luck with that, have a nice day” visit. They worked out between themselves, so it all worked out, but still…
At least your guy ‘manned up’ and left a note.
@chienfou I was thankful for that. I work on a college campus, and we have our own police force. The Lt. came out (as all the other officers were busy) and he called the guy. Luckily we do not see much crime on our campus, and they were able to help me much more than I expected.
My family has had 3 different cars hit while parked, one car twice. Had worse luck with parked cars then moving cars, go figure!
2 times a neighbor backing out of driveway (different neighbors, once at home and once at a friends). An idiot backing down the block after forgetting something at their friends house and side swiping into the back of my brothers 3 month old car before ending up parked in the side of the next car in line and finally a cab driver who “sneezed”, plowed into the car parked behind my car (totaling it) and pushing it into the bumper of my car parked in front. And people wonder why I try to park my car in the driveway now!
@daveinwarsh The first one pissed me off, the second one made me laugh.
@daveinwarsh @cinoclav
http://www.autoblog.com/2015/02/17/92-year-old-man-crashes-into-ten-cars-while-trying-to-leave-park/
@narfcake I love that there’s more to the video than the gif shows and that the guy hits MORE CARS.
I hit the side mirror of a parked car once. The guy was kind enough to settle w/o insurance.
@elimanningface I was willing to settle without insurance until the guy heard how much it would cost. I was actually surprised by the cost as well, seems like my Prius is mostly plastic
Last car was a 2008 Subaru Tribeca, fully loaded. Had it for about 3 months, stopped after a softball game to visit a friend. Her apartment parking lot was long and not really all that narrow. Spaces were to the right with a wall down the left side that you could parallel park against. That’s where I was parked as we stood outside talking and watched a teenager start to back out of a spot perpendicular to my car. I knew instantly what was about to happen. He backed up straight into my rear quarter panel. Fortunately he was really apologetic and insured but they were never able to get the new bumper to fit as tightly to the fender as it had from the factory. I had it back from the shop for no more than about 2 weeks when stopped at a stop sign at the dead end of a road, waiting to turn right. Apparently the woman behind me saw the same break in oncoming cars and without even waiting for me to move, drove right into me. I still don’t feel sorry for the wrath I laid upon her for her stupidity. Topper was when her insurance company’s adjuster came to my job to look at it and wrote up an estimate of $75. Back to the same shop (a really high end place - seriously, check out the kind of cars they work on: http://www.cavalloautobody.com/home.php) where they removed the bumper and it turned into about $2000 worth of repairs.
I am Guilty of hitting a parked Car, twice actually…
the first time I still had my learners permit, mom in the passenger’s Seat, backing out of a parking space at the local music store(getting my trombone serviced, not a metaphor) I was wearing blue Blocker sunglasses, and there was a gold /champagne-ey colored caddy parked by itself, at the end of the row behind me. I honestly never saw it until the cars touched, it blended in with the coloration from the glasses that well.
I dented her quarter panel, no damage to mom’s chevy. the owner of the caddy turned out to be a teacher at a local elementary, with a few boys of her own, and she just shrugged it off, saying" if that’s the worst thing you do in a car, you’ll be fine."
second time was during finals my senior year. driving dad’s Aerostar, pulled into a parking spot with what i THOUGHT was plenty of clearance… not so much…I panicked, and pulled a few spots away. ( you couldn’t see the front of those vans from the driver’s seat, so it really was a bit of a guessing game if you had clearance or not.)
later that afternoon mom gets a call from the local PD about a hit and run at the school parking lot…
I have to go down to the station, make a report, but in the end, we both settled privately, not involving insurance.
Cost me $1200 to replace the rear bumper on someone’s mom’s Honda.
but, you live and you learn.
I’ve had my car hit multiple times while parked. Once was at the school I work at. Mom left a note, “my daughter was crying in the back seat and I turned my head around to look at her and accidently hit your car”
I called her back (she left her number) and ripped her a new one. Told her she’s lucky she didn’t hit a kid, not paying attention in a school zone, during morning drop-off traffic, and that she should lose her license. Had it not been in a school zone during morning drop-off traffic I would have let it go and said let’s settle this without insurance, but I rung her through insurance all the way. I was piiiiiiiissssssed. Not because she hit my parked car, accidents happen, but because she wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing in a school zone during morning drop-off.
Once when I worked at a fast food joint we parked our cars across from the drive through because of the neighborhood, saw a car come in the wrong way and try to park next to me. Needless to say she hit my car. Then she backed up and we saw her looking around, so I wrote down her tag number, and she took off. Called the cops because of the damage and as they were there writing up the report here she came back again and I pointed her out. She got a ticket for leaving the scene, claimed she did not know that she had hit my car. We both had the same insurance company so I thought it would be easy to resolve, but no… My agent had me do all of the work contacting her agent and getting the estimates, etc. What a pain. Don’t have them anymore.