Afternoon all,
First time I've been brave enough to actually start a thread on here so please forgive any breaches of etiquette ;)
Yesterday evening a car came round the corner near our house, lost control, tried to recover itself and in doing so crashed into the side of the van belonging to our housemate which was parked legally and SORN in the space outside our house - for reference it's parked lengthways so as not to encroach on the pavement on a kind of forecourty bit.
DP and a friend rushed out and saw the car speed away; a witness also saw what happened. I was a minute behind them and rang the police. The witness gave their details and while explaining the damage to the police, we realised that a piece of plastic that we thought had come off the van was actually the number plate from the offending vehicle so obviously we were able to give that straight to them.
Obviously it wasn't a life or death thing - van was shunted into the wall of the house but we don't think there's any structural damage and we were all fine if a little WTF?
The police operator said the details would be passed to an investigating officer, and I said I was worried about someone driving around in a damaged car and recklessly too, and they said they would tell officers to "keep an eye out".
This morning I rang the non-emergency number and after 40 minutes got through to ask for a crime reference number, which I was given, and also got the name of the Traffic cop who will be dealing with it.
Apparently in a situation like this, procedure is to send a letter to the registered keeper in the first instance?
Now I certainly wasn't expecting armed response or anything of that nature, but I would have thought that if they have the address a visit would at least be in order?
I know things are stretched but a crime - driving away from the scene of an "accident" - has been committed, and also if the driving was reckless / dangerous, surely they would want to see CCTV which there should be on the stretch of road they were on before they came round the corner.
I think my AIBU is really whether an incident like this should be treated as what seems to be an admin task rather than a crime? The operator this morning did say they would do some background digging based on the info provided, but it would take some time.
I have taken loads of photos of the damage and the way the van was shunted - van is likely to be a write off according to our friend who is a mechanic by trade as the side sliding door is stoved in and the chassis probably shunted out of alignment.
Very grateful that the van was there tbh, as otherwise our bedroom might have been wrecked.
In addition it seems the passenger in the car was begging the driver to stop, but to no avail, so I am a bit concerned they might have been injured.
I dunno, I tend to think of cars as potential weapons in the wrong hands and if this person was drunk or high then getting them for that has been missed.
So AIBU to feel a little confused and a bit dissappointed about it all?