That really sucks. I got rear ended a few years ago, and the car load of DRUNK guys took off. I chased them down and boy were they p*ss*d off at me! My husband ran to phone the police, and I got them to give me their information. When my husband ran back and told them the police were on the way they took off again. They made it onto the Reservation without getting stopped, so I was seemingly out of luck. I called their insurance who called the owner of the car. It belonged to one of their moms, and she contacted me. She was very nice and appologetic. It took several months, but she did pay me out of her pocket for the damage to my Datsun Z car.
I think that with enough investiation, calls, and downright bothering the crap out of people you can usually get them to pay for your damages. It costs them more to show up in court. I hope that you can get hold of someone from the car dealer tomorrow and find out who this woman is. I hope they throw the book at her--she desrves that and more. If the car was stolen, wouldnt the police know right away? If it has paper plates, then it has been newly purchased, and a newly purchased vehicle is usually one the owner keeps close track of. The vehicle is probably not hers, maybe a relative or friend? Either way, she was probably not supposed to be driving, or maybe is wanted, and therefore ran. I think things will work out for you, have faith. Also, I am glad that you and your family weren't hurt at all, which is the most important thing, right? Good luck to you, and keep us posted!

 

Don't worry, the police may not catch up with her, but sooner or later Darwin will. Some people are truly not worth the oxygen they consume.

 

Another reason this idiots might have run, is that she's on probation or parole. Back to the slammer.

 

These comments feel like the Nissan driver is being stereotyped because of her ethnicity.

Maybe she was just scared.
After all, M-Rice said it was he and his family that confronted her. She most likely felt outnumbered.

A parolee most like would not have stopped nor would someone having just committed Grand Theft Auto or a 480.

People from all walks of life run for a variety of reasons. I'm sure you've seen news reports about celebrities, doctors, lawyers, or just plain folk with no criminal or traffic infractions whatsoever doing the same thing this gal has done.
========================================

ManilaRice, it sucks what happened to your ride. The best suggestion I've read so far is to contact Mossy Nissan. That'd be a good place to start.

 

It's the Carbon Dioxide that they produce that ticks me off.

 

After reading your post, I had to go back to the original post to see if her ethnicity was mentioned. I didn't make note of it when I made my comments.

That said, your observatiion is not valid concerning my post.

To have run TWICE, and try to bluff the Mini owner about calling cops, then running when they said they'd called the cops, seems to go beyond just being scared.

 

Sorry, but "feel like" and fact are quite different things.

 

When I lived in SC the dealers only had to put a paper tag on a new, dealer or test driven car untill they went to a temp tag. Those without insurance would just steal a paper dealer tag(s) and change them on their cars every so often. It was often very obvious that the car in front of you with the dealer tag was not-nor had it been in a very long time-just off the dealers lot. The uninsured problem was pretty bad-sounds like the same situation here. Maybe stolen, maybe just someone working the systems loopholes-either eay it's wrong, illegial, immoral and just plain sucks!- Glad to hear everyone with you was OK.

 

What's intrinsically unfair about this kind of thread is that we'll never get a chance to hear the Nissan driver's side of the story.

 

You are entitled to your own opinion, but why would we even need to hear what she has to say, she's the one who sped off? We were the ones who called the police and went in to make a report. I don't see what's so unfair about this. If you want to hear her side, go to a Nissan Altima forum.

 

oh puh-leeezz...she ran twice, once from a scene of an accident which is illegal by any stretch...

 

Took the words right out of my keyboard!

 

Oh and btw, just becuase I mentioned that she was black, doesnt mean I'm trying to incite hate crimes or prejiduce. It was merely an atempt at informing South Bay/El Cajon drivers of her description in case they saw her and maybe wanted to help me out.

 

So, it turns out...
the damage is in excess of $2000 since the hood got smashed in, even though it was only by the headlight
it's going to take at the most 3 weeks for it to be done since they have to order parts from the UK probably since mine is an 07
this is terrible...

 

What a horrible ordeal! I just wish you had a camera phone and took a snap of her face when you were talking to her! That would have come in sooo handy while talking to the cops.

 

Hey ManilaRice,

I spoke to your Mom today she told me the whole story that sucks! Well at least Copernicus' injuries are being treated as we speak and i can assure you that that bodyshop is really awsome they work on the hottest cars in the market on a daily basis. Please let me know if i can do anything to help. Motor safely!!!

Carlo Munoz

 

California just passed a law recently that if your insurance lapses the registration is suspended and you can't renew until you contact a special number to prove you have insurance again. This happened to me 2 months after I switched insurance carriers. Keep in mind the insurance neevr lapsed I just switched carriers. One reported as not being insured and the other didn't report anything.

The call center was able to clear the mess up and saw that my insurance had been valid for over 2 months.

But yeah, a dealer won't let you drive off the lot without insurance.

 

Or rather made to pay for the damages they inflict.


Paul

 

Good Luck with everything.

Back in my 20's someone did a hit & run to my 66 mustang. The vehicle left paint and part of their rear taillight reflector and chrome bezel on my hood. The place where I worked at the time I was always changing the rear tailights on a truck so I recognized the parts.

Later that day everytime a vehicle drove by I would check to see what it was.

Well a truck drove down the street with a broken tailight and the color of the paint on my fender. A chased ensued once the driver knew he was being followed he tried to lose me. I was able to get the trucks license plate and a business number on the side of the truck.

Afew weeks later and I was sent to get estimates for a repair which I used the money to pay for college tuition.

Hope you get lucky

 

I work an average of 2 uninsured motorist (read: hit and run) claims per day. Drivers leave the scene for a number of reasons:

1. Driving Uninsured
2. Stolen Vehicle
3. Afraid of repurcussions from their insurance company
a. Higher Premiums
b. Cancellation
4. Did not have permission from owner of vehicle to drive (diff than stolen, they knew the owner beforehand)

manilaRICE, sorry to hear about your accident. What sucks about being a victim of hit-and-run is that nearly every state has a UM deductible. That means you will be financially responsible for a portion of your damage even though you may well have had zero contributory negligence.

So, I hope they can somehow track this driver down.

 

Sorry to hear about this bro. The love of the car and the thought of bondo or parts that don't quite fit right, paint not quite matched properly just drives us nuts.

My 330i will never be the same after minor damage and a bad body shop.

Anyway, the main purpose of this reply is to not that I had many of the same thoughts about this person driving the Altima, BEFORE I read the part about her being black.

It amazes me how fast people drop the race card, as though you are not allowed to suspect a black person of doing anything wrong. Give me a break, at first I imagined a blonde with big *****.

Anyway, I hope this all works out for you. Don't worry about catching this person or getting revenge. She will certainly get what is coming to her.

Karma can be a real PITA!

 

sorry to hear about everything. I hope justice can be served. I'm curious, do you have any pics of your damaged MINI? It would be cool to see some before and after shots.

edit: well we all know what the 'after' pics would look like by just clicking on your current gallery

 

Am I the only one that thinks the OP showed extremely poor judgment in:

a) pursuing one damaged car in a high-speed chase, while driving another damaged car, and

b) getting out of the car to confront the driver when she finally did stop?

I don't know how fast he was going, but if he was "almost redlining" the engine in anything other than first gear, he was going 60+, easily. How would he have felt if a damaged suspension component let go during the chase, causing him to lose control and crash into some uninvolved third party, a large immovable object, or God forbid, a pedestrian?

If the Nissan driver didn't stop right after the accident, she probably doesn't have insurance, so I'm not sure what the OP was hoping to accomplish by chasing her down. Odds are, it was going to turn into an uninsured motorist claim one way or the other. I'm really surprised the 911 dispatcher wasn't screaming for them to quit the chase. Depending on what her reasons were for not stopping in the first place, catching up with her and confronting her is a damn good way of getting shot or run down.

In the future, I'd just file a claim with your insurance company (which you're going to have to do anyway), and leave the rest to the cops.

 

Nope, I agree... What if this person decided that they didn't want to be stopped and turned a small fender bender into a gun fight. Call the police and let them deal with it. This is why you have insurance.

 

Coopernicus is at the bodyshop...He said he'll try to go towards the end of this week