Happily The Snitch
It’s been a long 7 days for a fella, what with all the demands of work. Tonight, no longer on-call and ready to have a few drinks (a fella’s been on the wagon again, just to make sure he can still get onboard) I decided to have me some steak at a chain restaurant (sadly, not Mortons, but good enough for the price). I had a decent sirloin, a couple of Sam Adams and headed out to the parking for the drive home. As I’m walking through the parking lot, somone in a large, gold pickup truck with a cab on the back (effectively an SUV, since it’s one of those dealies with the 4 seats up front) starts backing up and maneuvering out of their space. Instead of backing fully out and heading up the lane, they back up only enough to wind their way through an open spot diagonally in front of them. Only problem is that, just like most people who own trucks/SUVs (in my opinion), they don’t know the size of their vehicle. With a crunching noise, they run up against a parked Volvo.
I both see and hear this, so I stop to see what happens. A middle-age woman in white pants exits the truck and walks back to the Volvo. Seeing this, I continue walking to my car thinking that she’s going to leave a note. Before you faint in shock, realize that I was still cynical enough to sit in my car and watch what she was doing. Sadly enough, she saw the damage, hopped back in her truck and booked it up the lane, and out of the parking lot. Unfortunately for her, I have this tendency towards doing the right thing (which she obviously lacks), and follow her far enough to get her license plate. It’s misting and my windshield sucks (thanks JN Phillips, you hacks!), plus I didn’t want to get too close and be obvious (in case she goes nutty on me), so I didn’t get the make/model of her truck. That and I’m not sure if one of the license plate numbers was an 8 or a B, but whatever…it’s a large gold truck, and I got most of the plate info.
She must have guessed what I was up to, because she made haste out of the lot. Regardless, I got what I got and turned back to the “scene”. I write down the license plate on a napkin and walk back to the restaurant to see if I can track down the Volvo owners. A party of four is exiting the restaurant as I approach, and they all seem relatively upper-middle class enough to own a nice, late model, upscale Volvo with a vanity plate so I ask. Lo and behold, the couple amongst this group do indeed own the Vovlo. I give them the details of the event, the plate number and the color of the truck, as well as my contact info should they need a witness. They were very nice and very grateful, with the gentleman saying, “it took a lot to step up like that.”
And this is what convinced me to blog this. The fact that it’s so uncommon for someone to take the time to be a responsible person that people see it as something amazing. That’s a sad state of affairs, in my opinion. Call me a snitch, but the fact is that I can put myself in the shoes of the victims and I’m not going to sit idly by while someone shirks their own responsibilities and runs like a coward. If it were me, I would have left a note with my contact information at the very least. I don’t think that’s unreasonable or exceptional. It’s the way I was raised and it’s the way people should act towards one another. I try to practice what I preach: be responsible for your actions.
Having had my nearly brand-new car backed into in a parking lot and having the person who hit me take off without so much as a note, I understand how annoying and costly this kind of situation can be. I refuse to let it happen to someone else if I’m in a position to help. And to the woman who ran off: shame on you. You are required to have insurance in this state, and this kind of thing is exactly what insurance is for. You should have taken responsibility for your actions, but now you’ll be paying a much heftier price (leaving the scene of an accident is not a good thing).
UPDATE: A police officer called me to confirm the plate number. I screwed up and forgot that one of the 5’s was an S. Correcting that seems to have done the trick. Shouldn’t have pulled the hit and run, lady.
