Hit and Run

A couple of days ago I witnessed an accident just down the street from my youngest daughter's school right after I dropped her off.  It started as a strange situation that got worse.  I was driving slowly down the street because I could see that there was a quarter-ton truck stopped in the middle of the road blocking the street, facing the same way I was driving, with it's flashers on.  It was parked next to a small car and there was a man extracting a child-seat, complete with strapped-in child, from the car.  I was just behind another vehicle, a mini-van, offset a metre or so to the left as the driver of the van was going to turn right at the intersection and I was going to drive straight through.  I should mention here that at the intersection there was a stop-sign facing the all of us who were travelling east-west along the avenue, and no stop sign for the drivers heading north-south along the street.

Dude driving the pickup finished strapping the seat and child into his truck and then ran around to the driver's side and jumped in.  The car had left right after he took out the child.  The guy immediately gunned it straight through the intersection, without stopping or even pausing at the stop sign.  He was T-boned by a white car coming north, which had time to brake for a split second before the impact.  Truck-guy continued through, swerving, and hit the first tree across the intersection on the boulevard.  It was a large tree and was essentially unscathed - I stopped by later and took a look at it.

The driver of the truck and the driver of the car both got out of their vehicles and were approaching each other.  Both I and the driver of the mini-van pulled over.  I pulled out a business card and was writing my name and a couple of details I observed (such as the fact that the driver of the truck was completely at fault) on it.  Glancing up I saw the pickup back away from the tree and tear off down the avenue.  They spoke to each other for thirty second, max.  I jumped out, walked up to the distraught woman and asked, "Did he just take off?"

"He was just yelling and swearing at me!  He told me that it was my effing fault and that he wasn't going to give me any effing insurance information, and then he just left."

I assured her that it was completely his fault and that I would back her up on that.  I asked if she had gotten his license plate number.  She said that she thought so and wrote it down.  She also told me that she had an eighty-six year old woman in the passenger seat.  Nobody appeared to be hurt - the velocities were relatively low, probably not more than thirty kilometres an hour.  I asked her if she knew where the nearest police station was.  When she said that she didn't, I told her how to get there.  We spoke briefly with the driver of the mini-van who gave the woman contact information and agreed that the driver of the truck was at fault.

I resumed my drive to the office, but was bothered by the state of the woman and the fact that the pickup driver had taken off.  I decided to go to the police station and make a statement so that the woman had immediate corroboration of her story.  The station was only about five blocks away, so it wasn't much of a detour for me.  When I walked in to the reception area, I was stunned to see the driver of the truck standing there, with a small child next to him, talking loudly to someone on the courtesy phone about how he had just been hit by some idiot woman and was filing a report so she wouldn't get away with it.  The officer at the front counter looked at me and asked if he could help me.  I didn't respond immediately and sidled over to the other side of the room away from loud-talking pickup-truck-guy.  The officer was looking at me strangely and asked again what he could do for me.  When he approached me I nodded my head toward the idiot and said, "Yes, actually it's about this guy over here."

He raised his eyebrows and said, "Oh?  Did you see what happened?"

"I sure did, and it was entirely his fault."

"Would you be willing to write out a statement?" he asked.

"I will."

"Just write down exactly what you saw," he told me.

I took the statement form and began to fill it in.  Meanwhile, idiot-man was done on the phone and loudly ranting about how this was "exactly what I need right before Christmas."  I don't think he connected me with the situation.  I was in my car for the brief time he was on the scene after the collision.

A few minutes later, the woman came in and spoke with the officer.  Then she began filling out her statement.  Moron-boy was only able to hold his tongue for a few minutes before he began to speak loudly to the air about how Christmas was probably ruined for him and his grandson and about how the kid could have been killed.  I finished my statement and began drawing a sketch of the intersection and the collision.  The officer scanned through my statement and asked that I sign and date it.  I did the same with the sketch.

The officer gave some paperwork to the truck driver and told him, "You've got your damage sticker and can go...and I'm giving you a ticket for failing to stop at a stop sign."

He lost it.  He completely lost it.  "What!?  I stopped at that stop sign!  She hit me!  It's her word against mine!"

"She has two witnesses that say you didn't stop."

"What!?  They're just taking her side!  They can't prove anything!"  He was yelling all of this to the officer, to the woman and to the room in general, and then screaming directly at the woman, "You've ruined Christmas.  I might as well kill myself, there's no way in hell I can pay this ticket!  You hit me!  Next time I'm going to just take off and cancel my insurance and disappear!  You'll never get a cent out of me!"

She started to cry.

Another officer, who had come out from the back when the commotion started, stepped out from behind the counter, stopped about three inched from the nose of the ranting man and forcefully said, "Sir, it was your driving that caused your problem.  You failed to stop at a stop sign and you left the scene of the accident.  We could be charging you with a hit-and-run.  It would be in your best interest to leave now."

The fool had the sense to mostly stop the threats and the raving, but he threw a couple more equally well thought-out epithets over his shoulder on the way out.

The first officer was comforting the woman.  I went over to her and told her that the guy was an idiot, to try not to let it bother her too much, and that I would be there for her if it went to court.  The officer expressed the opinion that it probably would end up in court.  I'm not sure.  If the insurance companies are sensible about it they'll take the fact that two independent witnesses agree that the truck driver was at fault as conclusive proof and settle it fairly.  If it does go to court, I'll be there.  That level of complete buffoonery is not something that I see every day.  It's sure as hell not something that he should get away with.

I hindsight, I'm glad I decided to go to the station.  Without witnesses, and with both parties contradicting each other, there would be no way to tell what had really happened.  The evidence at the scene was essentially non-existent, especially once both parties had gone.  I wish I had thought to pull out my phone and take some pictures or film the initial exchange between the drivers.