Anyone have experience with hit and runs? My car got hit Sunday

2

25inIrvine_IHB

New member
I'll try to keep this short. Went to Tustin Ranch Costco Sunday and parked in front of what used to be the Verizon store, now a windows store. Maybe 2-3 cars in that lot then.



Came back to see a Tundra screeching his tires while backing out, then peeling out of the parking lot.



Apparently, the Tundra hit me, then drove off, then came back, and then took off as soon as he saw me reach my car.



Luckily there were 3 witnesses that gave me their phone numbers including a nice couple that even wrote down his license plate! So I called the cops and he took the witnesses statements and filed a police report.



My questions are:



How long does this process usually take?

Is it easy for the driver to deny this? Especially since he has a big truck which according to witnesses just had a little scratch on it.

My guess is he is insured since this was a decent looking truck, clean and in order. It looked like a 2005 or so extended cab Tundra.

Unfortunately, no one seemed to get a good ID on the guy, including me. Just a good look on the truck



Does the insurance and police usually work well together? Or should I be calling alot to make sure there is no breakdown in communication. My insurance is with Mercury.





My insurance told me to wait on repairs until they get a hold of this guy and his insurance. Just wondering how long I will be driving this damaged car. =
 
Unfortunately, I have some experience with a couple of hit-and-run accidents. However, I was unlucky both times because I was hit from benind in heavy, bumper-to-bumper traffic, and both times the perpetrator drove off. Only once, we thought we got the right license plate number but when the police ran the plates, they said it belonged to a rental car which did not have any damage. In my experience, the insurance people follow up pretty closely with the police because they need to corroborate your statements with the findings in the police report and it also benefits them if they can find the offender because then they are not financially responsible for the damages to your car. Since we could not prove who did hit us, we ended up paying for the deductible both times, which were hefty. You are lucky witnesses came forward and there is a description of the car as well as the license plate ID. If you wanted the repairs to be done quickly, one option is to pay your deductible, get the repairs covered by your insurance, and hopefully, when they've hunted down this moron, you can get reimbursed for your deductible, and your insurance company can get reimbursed for the repairs. This was what our insurance (21st century) suggested but we were never able to find the hit-and-run drivers.
 
Same thing happened to me in Laguna Niguel, 2 witnesses left a note on my XJR and when I called them one said a Cadillac hit my Car so hard it moved forward...



I called the LN Police and they sent a Cop to my House...he called someone on His phone to get the Car Owners' tel # , name and address from the License plate and called them, at first they denied even being there then he told them he had two witnesses and said "Don't make me come round there.." and the Driver apparently said "Oh, I remember now, I was there today and did in fact reverse into another Car in the parking lot"



He then handed the Phone to me and at the end of the Day Her Insurance company came out to my Office and authorized me to take it in to be fixed.



The Car was hit on a Saturday and the Insurance Guy (Farmers) came out the following Tuesday...
 
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