Moral dilemma…what would you do?

Morgan, I wasnt saying to not report it. Sorry I read my post and it doenst make a lot of sence. I would deffinatly leave a note, at least it is somewhere to start to try to get the repairs made.

Well here is what happened.(thanks for all the advice by the way)

FI had called our landlord because we are having problems with the lights in our garage. As he was talking to her he asked about the neighbor and told her the situation (they lived in our house before we moved in). Joel just wanted to know how the neighbor would react if I went over and talked to him. Our landlord thought that not leaving a note didn’t sound like something the neighbor would do. Joel called me back to tell me that I should go to the neighbor’s house and talk with them. I was outside the house on the phone with him when the neighbor’s wife can over. Apparently my landlord took it upon herself to call the neighbors son (he does not live with them) to tell him he needs to talk with his parents.

She was quite upset and not making much sense. She didn’t give me a chance to say much. She said the reason her husband had left and had not yet left a note on the car was because his tooth fell out and he had to go to the dentist. I don’t feel this is 100% the truth as they were in the yard working on the motorhome for an hour before he left.. She also thought it was me who had called her son. I don’t even know her and her husband’s names…let alone their son’s phone number. All I was able to say is that we called our landlord asking for advice and she had called her son and that I felt they should put a note on the car ASAP. She waked off and came out a few minutes later and placed a Post-it on the car.

The car is now gone and I didn’t see the person come and get it…but hopefully she was honest and put the correct info on the note. This is what I was trying to avoid. I’m crossing my fingers that this is all there is and the poor car owner got the info they need.

I'd have to do something. Maybe leave your neighbor (the driver) a note (don't sign it if you don't want) saying you saw him hit the car. And say you will report him if he doesn't report it himself w/in the week or something. Let him do the right thing.

Maybe, just maybe, he did the right thing and called and already reported it himself. Or maybe he knows the owner of the car and already talked to him. We can hope!

guess i should have read the whole thread first!

I would leave a note on the car

I don't even want to touch this... lol

I've been in 2 similar situations to this (and I apologize for the long rant):

Situation #1.

My FI and I were renters and one of us always had to park our car in front of the house. Usually up on the sidewalk a bit (you know the bit of grass between the road and the sidewalk) because our street was so narrrow.

So we're behind the house bbq'ing and we hear this loud crunch and glass shattering. We go around to the front of the house to see some old guy in his pickup truck with a trailer behind it who had just taken out the side of FI's SUV! We called the cops and they said they'd look into it, but we had to pay our full deductible for the repairs as they never did find the guy!

A few days after the accident, before FI had the repairs done, FI was coming out of the video store and saw some old guy in a truck matching our description looking up close at his vehicle! FI got a full plate and reported it to the cops, still didn't get any results from the police around here. We were really pissed off that this guy was still driving around town when he really wasn't fit to do so, and that the cops weren't going to do anything about it.

Situation #2.

I was driving down the road, I really hate driving on the highway in the winter, ESPECIALLY at night, so I was almost home after my 45 min commute. I was almost at the lights to turn up the hill to my neighbourhood when I get hit on my passenger side by a pickup truck. I was probably going about 70 km/hr (40 miles/hr), he must have been doing about 120 km/hr (75 miles/hr).

So we both stop, I'm freakin' out because I almost made it home and some meatball friggin' hit me while I was moving. I get out of my car to get his info, then he TAKES OFF!!! Some guy behind me saw the whole thing and chased the truck through part of town before he lost him, but he came back and gave his statement to the police. Not like that did much help b/c the cops never did get back to me with any leads.

I always wondered if I had been hurt in that accident if the cops might have done something. Get one more drunk/stoned driver off the roads and away from me.

Worst thing was, I had just decided to go with a cheaper monthly insurance rate, which means you pay a bigger deductible if you're in an accident. My cheap deduction package had expired 10 days before!

UGH! You should tell someone what you saw. I'm sure if you went to the police they'd have to keep your information confidential.

I've been the person on the other end. After that accident, both my FMIL and I were driving around town for weeks looking for black pickups with red paint chips on them...