This is very much off topic, other than it happened in the Orem area, and I just wanted to vent and hopefully get suggestions from my fellow geeks.
Last Friday at around 7pm I was driving home north on 1200 West in Orem. I stopped at the 800 North stop light with one car in front of me. A silver Jimmy heading North thought it would be cool to see if she could merge the mass of her vehicle with the mass of my vehicle (I assume to perform some sort of physics experiment). Well things did not quite go to plan, and her Jimmy merely bent and crumbled in the mass of my vehicle, and no merging happened. I could see that she was disappointed by this failed experiment as she finally disconnected her cell phone conversation, to whom I assume must have been her physics lab partner. The 800 North light finally turned green and I slowly proceeded through the stop light, and then pulled off to the side of the road to wait her arrival so we could do the ritual exchange of Insurance information. Then to my horror she decided, at that moment, that instead of performing the traditional exchange of information, that she, I assume, decided to go and find another victim to perform her physics experiment on, and she took and immediate right speed off full speed up 800 North. Well not wanting to be outdone by her experiment I decided to perform one of my own. I called 911 and frantically said, "I have been involved in a hit and run and I am following her, what should I do? Should I continue to follow her?" The dispatch told me I could follow her if I wanted to, so I did the obvious thing, and took off following her. At this point I was really kicking me for not taking note of her license plate. She saw that I was indeed following her and thought it would be a cool idea to see if she could win this cat and mouse game, so she took the first right and headed south down the residential back roads on 900 West. She then took the second left down 675 North hoping once again to loose me. I just happened to catch a glimpse of her heading down this road, and so when I finally arrived at this road, I also took a left. There was no sign of her. Well fortunately for me I decided to continue down this road, and to my surprise this road looped back around and dumped me back on 900 West. Heading South down 900 West, and a block or two away, was the silver Jimmy I was following. Hooray! I was still on the phone with the dispatch, and she asked me which direction the vehicle was traveling, and I told her "South", which she responded that officers were on their way. So I followed here down the road, but she was gaining distance on me, and then at the end of 900 West there was a forced left turn. She followed the curve and she was gone from my sight again. Despair began to set in again. When I arrived at the curve I looked down the road and there was no sign of any vehicle driving away, but suspiciously to the side of the road, immediately in front of the stop sight, with all of its lights turned off, was a silver Jimmy that looked very much like the one I had been following. As I slowly drove past I could see the smashed up front of her vehicle. The mouse had been found. I pulled in front of her, and gave the dispatch the final address. To my surprise, as I looked at her vehicle, there was no license plate numbers to have recorded anyway, as there were only dealer advertisements where the license plates should have been. A few minutes latter an unmarked police car showed up, then another police car, and finally a third police car. Anyone driving by this circus could not for a second have thought something big was going down here. One of the officers collected my information insurance information, and asked if I was okay. That was the extent of any conversation I had the remaining time I was at the scene. My bumper was smashed in, and the side panel was broken, and who know what other internal damage could have been done. A barrage of questions were being asked to the driver of the failed science experiment, and the vehicle was searched. To my horror there was mention of her not having insurance. Then another comment of her being on prescription drugs, and citations and possibly being hauled off to jail. I was eventually told that I was excused and I headed home, being very grateful that, as far as I can tell, wasn't personally injured, and my vehicle was at least in a drivable state. I truly felt sorry for her as citations for hit and run, no insurance, and possibly driving intoxicated were no small apples. About an hour later the reporting office called me and told that she had not been hauled of to jail, and that he was not going to cite her. He said that the $50 ticket of a hit and run would not do justice. He then said that in his report it is obvious who had caused the problem and did not see a need for the ticket, and that she claimed to have insurance through some company he had never heard of. He said that she would have to pay for the repairs and seemed to indicate that this was justice enough. I was too in shock to even respond to this and was really irritated with myself for not saying anything. I rationalized that at least her insurance would cover the damages and I should be at least content with that. Well the weekend finally ended and I went down to the police station to pick up the report. The report basically said vehicle 1 hit vehicle 2 from behind. There was no mention of a hit and run (I believe a $300 ticket), no mention of her using prescription drugs, and a big blaring "no insurance" written where my sanity should have been. If the follow up found there was no insurance, why on earth was a no insurance citation not written. Having dealt with a no insurance citation in my youth, a no insurance citation is like a $280 ticket, plus a mandatory court appearance, and mandatory SR-22 insurance (which is FREAKY expensive). I assume you can possibly tell I am livid by this outcome. I was thinking, if the roles were reversed, I am fairly certain that I would have spend the night in jail, and probably would have accrued all 3 citations. How on Earth did she get off Scott free? Are there any lawyers or police officers that can explain to me what I am missing? Suggestions? Comments? Thanks for listening, Kenneth /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
