The roads he went on were all 2 lane+ major roads most people go at least 45 on them(trust me I live like 5 minutes from where it happened, the vision is good too (roads are clearish)-however once she turned into the residential street it can be quite a maze on some streets like where I live versus other streets which are 18Xth street and ____ Avenues which go perpendicular.; there aren't many jaywalkers here.

Also the driver did wait but until his father said he had called the cops that's when she bolted off.

 

I don't think that was his point. The point is that it is not his job to track bad guys and if it was the wrong bad guy/girl we might have read an obituary instead.

As for the chase part, breaking the laws by giving chase to another vehicle just because your laws were violated does not make it right clear, traffic or not. What if something was severely damaged on his car causing it to flip or swerve uncontrollably into another vehicle? He could have killed someone else. Not a very bright decision if you ask me.
People need to realize that they are not the police and have no business doing their job.

That being said, I fully understand why he did it. Again, this is what we have insurance for, you let them sort it out.

 

hmmmm
Way to poop on my party mr. daflake
You're entitled to your opinion, but i have a response or two:

First I think scoobywrx knows more of what "my point" is seeing as how i see him everyday and we talk about it on a regular basis.

Second, of course there's going to be danger involved in driving fast down a street like Prairie, regardless of the total lack of cars going in both directions. But isn't there danger when you drive at a regular speed, down let's say Prairie and get into an accident anyway, like let's say... I dunno... the accident we're all talking about right now? And come on, we're talking about speeding in a Mini, known for it's handling. Am I really gonna flip over going 60 in a straight line? It's not like I didn't slow down at all when i made that first turn into the residential. I mean, I was pissed about my car, but I still love him and I wasn't about to get careless in the ensuing chase, to the point where I'd lose control. I concur though, driving fast while I was that angry wasn't too safe. But who here on this forum hasn't tried pushing their Mini to its limits once or twice? I know you don't know exactly what happened, so your statement makes it seem like you're condemning high-speed motoring, which you are probably not. So let me clarify. The lady hit me, she sped off southbound. I chased after her southbound and then she made a left turn into the residential area maybe 1/4 mile down. I also made that left turn, and she stopped maybe 3 or 4 blocks down eastbound. So according to my calculations, the chase was two straight lines. There were no movie-esque drift turns or 180 spins, just straight line runs. After that stop, she was gone, so I wasn't really driving fast anymore. Just slowly and sadly.

That said, I'm pretty tired of talking about my accident. There are more points you made that I'd like to "defend" but, there's no point because then we'd go on and on flaming and then one of the admins would hav to close this thread, which I don't want. The whole point of my posting this is to let everyone know of a particualr circumstance that I happened to experience much to my dismay. From it, readers can make their own judgements on what THEY could/will do in such a situation.
It just pisses me off more that I'm on 16 days without my Mini, and it looks like it'd gonna be another two weeks until he returns. So if ya'll don't mind, I really like to just see sympathy posts rather than "he-said, she-said, coulda, woulda, shoulda" posts. Because though they may be right, and I could have done smarter things like maybe leave the park that day a little sooner or a little later, the possibilities are infinite, so let's just not go there anymore. Instead let's just be happy fun-loving motorists. Consider this another lesson for me (maybe some of you guys)

Hope any of that makes sense

 

^^^ Prob the best response I've seen to cull a thread that may otherwise go off in directions I don't like reading. Way to go, pare. Hope you get your mini back soon. I'm ordering mine this weekend and its gonna be PW/B as well.

 

Guess who I met Alex...Fountain..At least you didn't drive Coopernickus onto a curbstop, yes drive on (have the front wheels pass it) then instead of calling a towtruck put it in reverse then hit the accelerator till he jumped back... :sigh:*

 

I wasn't the originator of that point, I only agreed to the post. Maybe you should read the rest of the thread.

He was not there was he? Even if he was, condoning a chase is just stupid. The police are trained for it and even then, they will only do it if there is a life threatening reason. They also have radios and can call a unit that is closer to the are the perp is going.

First YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO BECOME THE LAW! This is the point. Your car was in an accident. What if the damage wasn't bad enough for you to limp it home but under high stress of the chase you flipped due to the damage and took out a pedestrian or another vehicle? You would go to jail… Bottom line is that you put other people in danger with your "chase" not to mention yourself. OK, you caught up with the person. What if they didn't want to be caught and stopped long enough to put a bullet in your head before driving off? Following a person that runs from the scene is not smart and I don’t know a police officer that would condone it.

Sorry, but your chase was stupid and irresponsible not to mention that the person still got away! That was the point of the original post.

That being said, I do feel for you as any accident sucks. My point to others here is to simply get the tag number and report it and the direction of travel. If the vehicle is not stolen then you and your insurance company might get lucky.

Then stop, get your MINI repaired and go motoring!

 

Sheesh
No need to get mad
I get it, you think it was irresponsible

I signed up for this forum to share stuff and have fun with other Mini owners, not to get lectured about my apparent lack of responsibility. I appreciate your concern, but you could express your opinions a bit more nicely.

 

I think you did just fine giving chase and then terminating when appropriate.

Sounds like you were probably speeding, but there was no mention of traffic conditions so I assume they were light. Your passengers weren't screaming for you to stop, were they? Probably a good indication you were doing OK. I trust if the car had stopped and it would have been some gang-banger, yo, or biker type getting out, you whould have used that same judgement... got a good look and driven away post haste.

You know how much time an Officer will give a hit & run victim without a very good vehicle and driver description when you don't have a license plate? "Here's your case number sir. Sorry about your trouble." 'Bout that much. Then again, give them somthing to work with and they'll usually work for you.

Based on what you were able to provide as a good victims and witness, this case has good potential for follow-up. I'd hit up the dealership for all Nissans of the same color sold within the last month (usually the time limit for a temp tag), to females, living in that general area. Run driver's checks on all the buyers to find al those with a similar physical description. Once the list was narrowed down a bit (probably what, a dozen cars, maybe?) start accounting for each car.

Squeeky wheel gets the greese. Follow up with the PD and check the status of the case. Cops are human, too. They tend to do more when they know they're working for a victim that cares about the status of their case, wants to pursue the matter criminally and just doesn't want the old "case number for insurance purposes".

Just a few tips. Take 'em for what they're worth and good luck.

 

Sorry forgot to put my...

I came across very curt and for that I am sorry however you attacked me so I responded. If you don't like my points, ignore it and move on.

 

If you have insurance, it is up to them to follow up with the police. That is why you pay them. Giving chase to a person is just not smart and that is the point. You have no idea nor are you typically prepared for the situation you are getting into. It would be like a police officer going into a possible gun fight without a weapon!

As for traffic conditions, that is pointless. You are not allowed to break the law under any circumstance. Do you think that cop is going to care when he pulls you over for speeding because you were chasing someone that hit you? Uhhh nope!

My points are this... I tend to like everyone on these forums and would like to see everyone back here safely. The situation above could have gone horribly wrong and as pointless considering you have insurance.

It is clear that some of you guys just don't get it, so I am moving on.

 

"Armchair Quarterbacking" doesn place a person on the football field at game time, in the moment.

Makes no difference AT ALL if ManilaRICE should or should not have chased down the other person. It's done. It doesn't matter if anyone in here thumps their chest and says this or that, none of us were there in the moment.

 

Nobody's business

 

She had outstanding warrants?
On probation?
"Borrowed" the car from friends or family without their knowledge?
Any one of many reasons to flee.

Sorry to hear about all this. It's the wild west in the south bay. I used to live in Torrance.

 

Sorry to hear about your car, but you'll get it back soon enough. I was without my MINI for nearly 5 wks (warranty issue), but thankfully my dealer had a loaner MINI for me to use. Three days before I got my car back, I was rear-ended by an illegal alien. His craptastically riced-out Honduh Prelude was so mangled in the front that he couldn't have run even if he tried, but the MINI took the crash quite well. Our cars are stout and will protect us well.

I was so angry once I figured out this guy had no ID of any sort and couldn't (or wouldn't) speak english that I nearly assaulted him for being so careless. I can completely understand why you took chase. For both of us, probably not our finest moments. Hopefully you won't have to pay out any $$ for uninsured motorist and they find the useless waste of carbon who smashed your MINI and she gets her just desserts. Somehow, the guy who hit me had valid insurance (no idea how), but it still took four months of back-and-forth to finally get them to pay for the repairs to the loaner MINI.

Just be careful out there...

 

manilaRICE,

I'm still following this tread in the hope that you get some information about the case like they found out who the driver was.

Good luck on the repairs!

 

The phrase "Armchair Quarterbacking" has a very negative connatation that implies that unless you were involved in an incident, you have no basis for stating opinions or making judgements. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In Naval aviation, we conduct what's called "post-mishap analysis", where we read a mishap report and the comments of the aviator(s) involved, and discuss what was done well and what could have been done better. Then, we look at our current rules, guidelines, and safety precautions to see if they're still adequate, or if we need to implement changes in order to prevent future mishaps. We do this because we don't have the luxury of experiencing every possible emergency/mishap first-hand -- no one would survive that.

If I were to go in front of a professional review board for something that happened in the plane and told the board "I was there, you weren't - keep your opinions to yourself", the response wouldn't be "We understand, you threw out all of the rules and your prior training because you were 'in the moment'". The result would be me walking out the door with my wings on the table.

The post-mishap analyses are very structured and non-confrontational. Likewise, even though I think Manila showed some poor judgement, in no way does that mean I think he's "stupid", "a bad person", or even "a bad driver". I just hope he thinks about what happened, how he responded, and what he might do differently next time.

Actually, we can ALL use his experience to ask those same questions of ourselves, so we can plan for the future without having to go through the same unpleasant experience ourselves first.

Remember - no one has enough luck to survive experiencing every emergency even once - learn from the experiences of others.

 

Yes ScottRiqui, that's one of the main reasons I posted this incident (the other to vent of course) as well as my other which you can find at the bottom of my sig. Glad we're all coming to terms with this
I agree that I made bad judgements, but hey, that's why we learn from our mistakes. And afterall, I am only a "kid" to many of you

 

And in the Navy, you know it is required to go through such a thing. Nowhere did I see the OP requesting a "post-mishap analysis," or invited a critique of his reactions. He asked for anyone in the area to keep an eye out for the perp that his his car.

To critique his actions without having been asked, is right up there with other examples of unsolicited advice: Back seat driving, kibbitzing, or yelling at the ump.

 

I wouldn't believe that for a second.

I've worked probably a hundred+ hit and run investigations, and assisted on probably 10x that. Not ONCE has an insurance agent ever called for an update on a case, assisted in locating & identifying a suspect, or brought an investiagtion to a close due to their legwork.

On the other hand... I have met with three agents from two major insurance carriers who upon recieivng a hit and run claim without any suspects or witnesses went to considerable leangths to show that their client was falcifying thier report and commiting insurance fraud. The end goal of the adjuster was of course to deny their claim.

 

Yeah I'm sorry...but if someone tagged Clara like that and tore off, I'd be following them, with 911 on the phone.

Non-recklessly, of course...

 

ManillaRice,

I understand completely. My former employer and I were hit while waiting for a red light in Florida in a rental van. The guy looked like he was going to pull over to exchange info, until we got out of the van, then he took off. I think at that time we were running on adreneline, and took off after him, boss driving and me trying to sound like a cop tv show (using the word perpetrator a lot) on the cell phone. We were chasing him at speeds around 100 mph until he took a turnoff and headed down a little 2 lane road at a high rate of speed and turned off his lights. About that time the adreneline must have worn off (plus it was about 1 in the morning), so we went back to the intersection that it all started and waited for the police for the report. Fortunately, we bought the extra insurance on the rental. It was while waiting for the PD that we started discussing the whole high speed chase with a damaged van and what the h*ll were we thinking?!?

Hope you get your car back sooner rather than later. Sucks to be without your ride. Keep us posted on the progress.....

 

I worked for an insurance company (AIG) and I can tell you that they aren't your friend but you have to hold their feet to the fire. People that are passive with them tend to get walked on. Sure, it isn't right but that is the way it is. Bottom line is that you give them your money so they better be there when you need them anything less is unacceptable. Unfortunately it is the butts in life that steal or cheat that make it hard on the rest of us honest folks.

My point earlier was that it was stupid to confront a person that ran from the scene as you don't know what you are getting into. I was merely agreeing with another post before I was jumped on. I'm sorry if I came across heavy handed but I have been close to a situation like this that ended poorly. Like I said earlier, if the person was desperate, this could have ended very badly and I think that people that read this thread should realize that and take heed. It is not cool to do what he did above but I do understand that anger can take over.