Police Officer Preparation & Law Enforcement Resource - Archive

I'll start with a thank you, as every time I post here everyone has been helpful, plus you guys do good work.

My question is this - a few years back, someone did a hit and run on my car. I had most of their license plate, plus the color, make, and model of the car. The only attempt to find the owner of that car was when I gave them the majority of the plate number (I unfortunately have dyslexia and probably inverted numbers, plus it was only a quick look) they (911) ran it over the phone... then nothing else was ever done to locate the car.

I was surprised for several reasons - I was injured, my car was damaged, and the location of where the car was coming from suggested heavily that this person lived in the immediate area as it was coming from the local grade school right as children were being dropped off in the morning (which is the only thing for someone who doesn't live in the neighborhood itself to come to).

Is it very difficult to track down someone like this? Or to try more than one variation on the plate number? Was it simply not worth their time? It left me feeling very uneasy and unhappy with my local police department as nothing was ever done. I had to pay for a doctor's visit and all the repairs to my car on my own.

Again, thank you for any responses and your time.

Depending on your state, hit and run's can be very hard to solve. Most of ours go unsolved.

In court I have to prove who the driver was, and that they intentionally ran from the scene. The hardest part is actually proving who the driver is. No witnesses to identify the driver? Then the only thing I have is the suspect's statements (if I even have a suspect), and maybe some kind of circumstantial evidence. A lot of the time most driver's are not going to admit they were driving, or that they lent it to a friend and that they "don't know their name".. In which case, if all I have is the suspect's statements, and no other evidence, and they say they weren't driving it, I have no case.

It's not as easy as running the tag and going and arresting the owner. I have to actually prove who was driving it, and the sad part is, that's difficult to do most of the time, and most hit and run's go unsolved as a result.

...then nothing else was ever done to locate the car.



What leads you to believe that this is the case? I think you are assuming facts not in evidence here. The police were not able to find the car that hit you. That doesn't mean that they didn't look or try to do so.

-Citicop.

What leads you to believe that this is the case? I think you are assuming facts not in evidence here. The police were not able to find the car that hit you. That doesn't mean that they didn't look or try to do so.

-Citicop.

Citicop, you are correct. I should have said more "it felt like they did nothing else". I can only speak from the side I see, in which they left the scene and that was the last I ever heard of the situation.

cntryboy0531, thank you for that information. It taught me more than I previously knew about what is involved in a hit and run. I am very surprised to hear that the owner of a car, if they loan it to someone, has no direct responsibility if it is involved in an accident. I am not entirely sure why that surprises me, mostly because it seems like that would be a way to make sure they do not lie about someone borrowing it (again, this is only to a civilian so I don't know how it all works) and that if someone did borrow, that they give up that person.

cntryboy0531, thank you for that information. It taught me more than I previously knew about what is involved in a hit and run. I am very surprised to hear that the owner of a car, if they loan it to someone, has no direct responsibility if it is involved in an accident. I am not entirely sure why that surprises me, mostly because it seems like that would be a way to make sure they do not lie about someone borrowing it (again, this is only to a civilian so I don't know how it all works) and that if someone did borrow, that they give up that person.

If I can prove which vehicle was involved, the owner could have CIVIL liability (civil suit, insurance, etc), but I would still have to prove who the driver was to hold the Driver accountable criminally.

If the owner intentionally lied to me, and I could prove it I could charge them with different things for that, but its still a matter of what I can prove vs what I believe happened. I've only been able to charge the driver of a hit and run a handful of times. Most of the time they go unsolved.

I was working a hit and run case last week where the suspect had an out of state plate, and two separate witnesses got the full plate number. Had our dispatch run the plate and it came back only as "Not on File.". Even had a trooper from the plate's state try to run the plate (thanks, SafetySteve!) and got the same result, no registration info available. And that's with a full plate number, not just a partial one.

In a perfect world every plate on a vehicle would provide info on the current/last registered owner, and every partial fingerprint would positively identify a suspect every time, but this is not a perfect world. Assuming the police were lazy or did nothing focuses the blame in the wrong direction. I certainly understand your frustration about the situation, but a criminal case's ability to be solved is only as good as the leads police have been given to solve it.

In a case like yours where only a partial plate was obtained and that plate might not have even been correct, we would only do any latent follow-up if there were serious injuries (life threatening) or if there was a fatality. Tracking this type of vehicle down CAN be done many times, however it would take a massive amount of hours and different resources to do it. We've tracked down hit & run vehicles in fatalities where there wasn't even a tag obtained, however most agencies do not have the resources to spend the amount of time that would take on a non-fatal crash.

I can attempt to run plates that are partial. Say the plate is ABC123, but you only saw the BC123. Or maybe even get lucky with less than that if only a few cars that match the description have any combo. But switch a letter/number, without being able to know which numbers/letters may have been mixed up AND only have a few of the digits, almost impossible to find the car just by the plate.

In a case like yours where only a partial plate was obtained and that plate might not have even been correct, we would only do any latent follow-up if there were serious injuries (life threatening) or if there was a fatality. Tracking this type of vehicle down CAN be done many times, however it would take a massive amount of hours and different resources to do it. We've tracked down hit & run vehicles in fatalities where there wasn't even a tag obtained, however most agencies do not have the resources to spend the amount of time that would take on a non-fatal crash.

We've done that as well. We solved one of my hit and run fatalities where we didnt have a tag number or even vehicle description. But we only pull out thosekind of resources with serious injury or death.

Yet again, thank you kindly for all your replies. They have been very educating. It's difficult for a civilian to know exactly what happens 'behind the scenes', and yes, can be frustrating. Thank you for your replies, and as always you don't let me down when I'm hoping to find something out!