I got sideswiped on the way home from work today and the other driver took off. After speaking with insurance and HPD non-emergency line, it sounds like the next step is to go in to the local substation and file a police report in the morning. I got the plates and everything, so hopefully this guy has insurance (though probably a fat chance since he took off).

Anyone have experience with filing similar reports with the HPD? Any ideas on what to expect, or how likely it is that they'll be able to catch the guy so I can get compensated? I have uninsured coverage that would handle it, but I'd much rather take it out of the other guy's hide...

Arkyd said:

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Anyone have experience with filing similar reports with the HPD? Any ideas on what to expect, or how likely it is that they'll be able to catch the guy so I can get compensated?

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Probably unlikely.

Post the tags on the outdoors board

Gator03 said:

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Arkyd said:

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Anyone have experience with filing similar reports with the HPD? Any ideas on what to expect, or how likely it is that they'll be able to catch the guy so I can get compensated?

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Probably unlikely.

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Highly unlikely, like 99.9% sure HPD will not do anything. Make the police report and send that to the insurance company.

Arkyd said:

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I got sideswiped on the way home from work today and the other driver took off. After speaking with insurance and HPD non-emergency line, it sounds like the next step is to go in to the local substation and file a police report in the morning. I got the plates and everything, so hopefully this guy has insurance (though probably a fat chance since he took off).

Anyone have experience with filing similar reports with the HPD? Any ideas on what to expect, or how likely it is that they'll be able to catch the guy so I can get compensated? I have uninsured coverage that would handle it, but I'd much rather take it out of the other guy's hide...

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relevant:

I can tell you exactly what will happen if you were not injured.......nothing. They will put zero effort into it.

Now..... if you were hurt and the other driver took off, that's a potential 3rd degree felony, and they will take that seriously.

I tried to deal with the company (Modern Method Gunite) that sideswiped my wife. At first they seemed receptive to reimbursing me, but in the end, they ignored me and refused to return calls. My insurance covered it in the end.

They simply don't care. 2 guys tailed me into work after I made a counter withdrawal at the bank. 18 years of ATM withdrawals and no problem. One time at the counter and I get tailed. Almost certainly an inside job, and the bank knew it. The guys piggy -backed through our security gate with another employee, then smashed my window and ransacked the car looking for cash. Clearly if I had been in my driveway, they would have robbed me or worse. We got their plates on our security camera.

Long story short, our site management spoke to the police because they couldn't find me. When I went to the police to add to the report, they told me I couldn't add anything because I hadn't filled it. I had to file a separate report. It was listed as criminal mischief. They didn't care what the bank knew. They didn't care about the plates. They didn't care about even lifting a finger to find an obviously aggressive and violent person.

So, no, they literally couldn't care less about your silly car. If you want compensation, use the plates to find their insurance company. DIY or forget about it. There are too many middle-aged non-threatening Whitey's in minivans committing incidental $250 traffic violations for them to care about actual crime.

Car getting hit and guy leaving scene is a Class B misdemeanor. Same as weed. One step above a traffic ticket.

Did you get a good look at guy? Enough to ID him? Do you want to press charges? Are you willing to take time and effort to go through legal process to ID him and then go to trial on it?

Problem is most people would answer no to most those questions which is why "police don't care about me" or "don't solve my problems." The real world isn't CSI.

If you just want money to pay for it that's not what police are for. That's what insurance is for. If insurance company needs a report then do a quick one at a station just to give them the number but don't expect the guy to get the death penalty within 60 minutes.

General rule: Cops are useless for traffic accidents in Houston (and in general). Too many people speeding on I-10/merging into HOV lanes ($$$$) to worry about your stupid fender bender with some illegal that needs to be deported yesterday.

Quote:

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Car getting hit and guy leaving scene is a Class B misdemeanor. Same as weed. One step above a traffic ticket.

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Except cops loooove to bust people for weed and speeding.

RK said:

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Quote:

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Car getting hit and guy leaving scene is a Class B misdemeanor. Same as weed. One step above a traffic ticket.

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Except cops loooove to bust people for weed and speeding.

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Because they are making money and getting free weed in those cases.

Had a vehicle follow a coworker into the parking lot where I work. He broke into several vehicles. Got video, plates, description, everything. Gave it all to HPD. Nothing burger.

So out of curiosity I had outdoors board locate the guy via plate. Ended up finding his address in east houston, rap sheet a mile long. Shared info with corporate folks. They pinged HPD several times.
Nothing. Nada. Nunka.

Look up statistics on theft, robbery, auto theft, hell even rapes. The % of people convicted is extremely small.

Crime pays in Houston.

Those getting their cars broken into, report to the police that a handgun is missing. Then they'll solve the case.

Dunners2011 said:

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Car getting hit and guy leaving scene is a Class B misdemeanor. Same as weed. One step above a traffic ticket.

Did you get a good look at guy? Enough to ID him? Do you want to press charges? Are you willing to take time and effort to go through legal process to ID him and then go to trial on it?

Problem is most people would answer no to most those questions which is why "police don't care about me" or "don't solve my problems." The real world isn't CSI.

If you just want money to pay for it that's not what police are for. That's what insurance is for. If insurance company needs a report then do a quick one at a station just to give them the number but don't expect the guy to get the death penalty within 60 minutes.

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I could understand that attitude if it was absolutely random and you didn't get a plate number. But if you can provide a make and model of the car plus a fuggin plate number, the police should do their charged duty and find the perp - if anything to issue a citation. But most of the time, they won't even do that much. We've all seemingly been there before.

Meanwhile, drive at what you think is the speed limit in a purposefully lowered zone on a stretch of highway that was annexed by the city for the sole purpose of issuing tickets - and you are a heinous criminal that now has to spend your time at court and DD or pay a fine for such an egregious transgression and crimes against humanity for going 65 in a 55. And you don't have a choice in that matter, and the cops will spend the time and effort to make sure you pay.

I had theif steal a family member's purse in a smash and grab. It had their credit cards and iphone in it. I managed to have an officer on scene within minutes, as soon as he got done with the report he left. As soon as he left, my email and phone started pinging as the iphone and CC purchases were tracked from Katy to Baytown. This information was given to police on the phone, real time.

I'll let you guess how much effort was put up to catch the guy. Literally...their job was done for them. Like..ALL of it. The next time, I will be telling dispatch that I have my CHL and he is at xxxxx store and I am heading there now to deal with the problem. I can almost bet they will show up then.

Martin Q. Blank said:

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Those getting their cars broken into, report to the police that a handgun is missing. Then they'll solve the case.

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No they won't. Been there.

Law enforcement is not here to protect and serve, they are here to shake you down. They'll expect you to take it like a man and for you and your insurance to handle it and you'll pay a slightly increased premium while the illegal or felon gets away scott free and you pay for their misdeeds...LEO's have decent, tax paying, law abiding citizens to harass as another form of tax for the city and state. Part of living in a liberal sanctuary city full of Beto loving eunuchs is that illegals can easily get away with being a net drain/burden on society in so many ways. This is just one of many. Don't get me started on the ER's, schools etc.

Also gotta laugh when anti-gun libs put their faith in cops. When seconds count, they could be 10-45 minutes away.

Political rant over.

This is the reason I keep a bank envelope stuffed with green paper in my console.

Hit the closest freeway, make sure they're behind you, make it rain.

Martin Q. Blank said:

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Those getting their cars broken into, report to the police that a handgun is missing. Then they'll solve the case.

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San Antonio PD won't. I know it will never happen, but I cannot give up hope of one day getting a phone call that the chollo that broke into my truck and stole my 1911 eventually ran out of luck and was offed by some other chollo and that I'll be getting my firearm back. It' nothing but hope, but it's all I've got.

Meanwhile, I sincerely hope that my gun is out there offing vatos and continuing to do the Lord's work.

Trump is literally a Nazi. Police are killing POC for sport.

I want government to have all the guns...

I know it sucks but I can't really blame the Police Dept. There is just too much crime and motor vehicle accidents and not enough personnel (officers). And there will never be enough.

Quick stats show
67,241 MVAs in 2016 (182/day)
72,166 Thefts in last year (197/day)

There's just not enough officers to investigate and follow up each case if there is that many new cases per day.

Not including burglary, rape, murder, assault, robbery per day...

Now you can see why they don't bother with the little stuff (besides not generating income). But they need to money to fund the department somehow. Better to help offset the cost by getting it from people who "break the law", than raising taxes or getting bonds approved, or other dumb tax or fees on the citizen.

I'm not a police officer

Going to be interesting when we reach the point where it's 75%+ self driving cars. Should free up a lot of time and resources for cops to actually protect and serve.

Doubt it. There's still ~120,334 crimes (329/day) that are reported each day that aren't MVA's, murders or rapes.

Stats are from Trulia (not sure how acturate) but don't have time to look at official stats.

HCSO isn't any better. When a thief stole the catalytic converter out of my truck while it was sitting in the driveway one night, the neighbor across the street's cameras got clear shots of the car and driver who stole it. I tried to get HCSO to give me a name and number so I could find out a way to get the video files to whoever was working the case. Never was able to get a response...probably because nobody was working the case.

Update: Filed the report this morning. They said I might get a call for an investigation since I was able to provide full car and plate details and a decent description of the driver, but frankly I'm not holding my breath.

In addition to not being particularly helpful when I was filling out the report, the officers at the substation were practically begging me not to file the thing. "Your rates will shoot up / you'll never get a good sales price on your car with this report on your record! You should think about whether you really want to file the report!". More likely they just didn't want to bother with the process. They actually managed to convince a girl that came in shortly after me, also for a hit and run, not to file the report with the same spiel and she left.

So as everyone is saying here, my expectations are not particularly high that I'll get to see anything in the way of direct justice served on this guy, but I needed the report filed to claim uninsured motorist coverage on my insurance anyway, so at least I didn't come out completely empty handed.

I do agree that in the big scheme of things this is hardly a major matter that they probably want to spend limited manpower on, but you think they would want to take the easy wins like this when they can get them handed over on a silver platter...

I find HPD to be very nice. I smile and wave to about 20 of them downtown as I leave work everyday. Usually they wave back.

Boo Weekley said:

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Going to be interesting when we reach the point where it's 75%+ self driving cars. Should free up a lot of time and resources for cops to actually protect and serve.

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Yep - even less will get written than now.

HPD writes a few hundred thousand tickets fewer now than they did ten years ago.

Dallas PD is the same way. A decade ago after "historic decreases" in ticket writing they had dropped to under 600k citations a year, and now write less than 200k a year.

Texas DPS is writing 200-300k fewer speeding tickets than a decade ago.

Municipalities across the state file a million fewer traffic charges than about 5 years ago.

In some small towns traffic enforcement may still be a point of emphasis, but in the big departments you may have a relatively few guys (motor cops) that write a ton of tickets but the regular dudes hardly ever bother with writing a ticket.

Having the license plate solves nothing for this. The suspect has to be identified. Can't put the car in jail. And without witnesses and a clear view of the driver you won't be able to charge anyone with this.

And all you ranting and rambling about traffic tickets the guy a couple up from me is right. I haven't written a ticket in weeks. Too busy going call to call trying to catch up with the tremendous workload we have. Our department is less than a third the size of other departments with same amount of citizens.

Want to feel safe? On any given night I work a beat with about 20 thousand citizens, usually all alone. So yes your little property crimes matter but we don't have the resources to solve them all.

Houston needs officers and funding and until we get that we will not be solving all the simple thefts and car accidents.

Dunners2011 said:

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And all you ranting and rambling about traffic tickets the guy a couple up from me is right. I haven't written a ticket in weeks. Too busy going call to call trying to catch up with the tremendous workload we have. Our department is less than a third the size of other departments with same amount of citizens.

Want to feel safe? On any given night I work a beat with about 20 thousand citizens, usually all alone. So yes your little property crimes matter but we don't have the resources to solve them all.

Houston needs officers and funding and until we get that we will not be solving all the simple thefts and car accidents.

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Here is my problem with that. I get not wanting to go out and chase every lead on a case where somebody had a pair of sunglasses stolen out of a car with the doors left unlocked overnight and no info whatsoever on the perp. But what I don't get is when somebody says "I have video of the perp, a clear shot of the license plate on the car, etc." on a theft for thousands of dollars worth of stuff taken in a manner that strongly implied a theft ring involved; and the police don't even show any interest. You can look at it as solving one crime for a few hundred dollars...but I guarantee the guy that took my catalytic converter stole more than one just that night alone. He clearly had a list of addresses because the video showed he pulled up and initially looked under the green Toyota truck across the street that was a slightly older model that didn't have a bolt-on converter, then he left. 20 minutes later, he drove back up and pointed his headlights up my driveway to where my truck was, parked his car, and got out to steal mine.

He had a list of locations with trucks that had those catalytic converters on them that could be easily unbolted and that retailed for ~$1300 new at the time. Where did he get that list? Who else was he working with? I had video of the perp and his car as he loaded mine into the trunk. I guarantee I wasn't his first stop that night, and he probably has done the same thing to dozens of other people. One detective taking pictures from that video to metals salvage places could have ended that guy's crime career and probably solved a few hundred crimes in a few hours. Talking to the guy about his jail options probably would have rolled up where he was getting the list and who else was involved with a few hours of DA time. But no...far more important for that cop to sit at the end of the street from 3pm to 6pm every day writing tickets for people rolling the stop sign than spend a few minutes following up on an easy lead.

txags92 said:

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Dunners2011 said:

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And all you ranting and rambling about traffic tickets the guy a couple up from me is right. I haven't written a ticket in weeks. Too busy going call to call trying to catch up with the tremendous workload we have. Our department is less than a third the size of other departments with same amount of citizens.

Want to feel safe? On any given night I work a beat with about 20 thousand citizens, usually all alone. So yes your little property crimes matter but we don't have the resources to solve them all.

Houston needs officers and funding and until we get that we will not be solving all the simple thefts and car accidents.

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Here is my problem with that. I get not wanting to go out and chase every lead on a case where somebody had a pair of sunglasses stolen out of a car with the doors left unlocked overnight and no info whatsoever on the perp. But what I don't get is when somebody says "I have video of the perp, a clear shot of the license plate on the car, etc." on a theft for thousands of dollars worth of stuff taken in a manner that strongly implied a theft ring involved; and the police don't even show any interest. You can look at it as solving one crime for a few hundred dollars...but I guarantee the guy that took my catalytic converter stole more than one just that night alone. He clearly had a list of addresses because the video showed he pulled up and initially looked under the green Toyota truck across the street that was a slightly older model that didn't have a bolt-on converter, then he left. 20 minutes later, he drove back up and pointed his headlights up my driveway to where my truck was, parked his car, and got out to steal mine.

He had a list of locations with trucks that had those catalytic converters on them that could be easily unbolted and that retailed for ~$1300 new at the time. Where did he get that list? Who else was he working with? I had video of the perp and his car as he loaded mine into the trunk. I guarantee I wasn't his first stop that night, and he probably has done the same thing to dozens of other people. One detective taking pictures from that video to metals salvage places could have ended that guy's crime career and probably solved a few hundred crimes in a few hours. Talking to the guy about his jail options probably would have rolled up where he was getting the list and who else was involved with a few hours of DA time. But no...far more important for that cop to sit at the end of the street from 3pm to 6pm every day writing tickets for people rolling the stop sign than spend a few minutes following up on an easy lead.

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I understand the frustration, but that detective probably has 50-100 other cases with video and solid leads to investigate.

I can't speak to HPD but for a long time folks would be shocked to know how few detectives for say violent crimes that the HCSO had assigned to their almost 2 million residents of unincorporated harris county. Property crimes was only a few guys and their cases loads were crazy unrealistic.

Dunners2011 said:

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And all you ranting and rambling about traffic tickets the guy a couple up from me is right. I haven't written a ticket in weeks. Too busy going call to call trying to catch up with the tremendous workload we have. Our department is less than a third the size of other departments with same amount of citizens.

Want to feel safe? On any given night I work a beat with about 20 thousand citizens, usually all alone. So yes your little property crimes matter but we don't have the resources to solve them all.

Houston needs officers and funding and until we get that we will not be solving all the simple thefts and car accidents.

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We'll of course you haven't been writing tickets. With the school zones off, you've got time for posting on Texags. Don't worry, 8/20 will be here soon.

94chem said:

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Dunners2011 said:

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And all you ranting and rambling about traffic tickets the guy a couple up from me is right. I haven't written a ticket in weeks. Too busy going call to call trying to catch up with the tremendous workload we have. Our department is less than a third the size of other departments with same amount of citizens.

Want to feel safe? On any given night I work a beat with about 20 thousand citizens, usually all alone. So yes your little property crimes matter but we don't have the resources to solve them all.

Houston needs officers and funding and until we get that we will not be solving all the simple thefts and car accidents.

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Well of course you haven't been writing tickets. With the school zones off, you've got time for posting on Texags. Don't worry, 8/20 will be here soon.

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A few schools out my way might be ditching late arrival days, so the easy targets at 1030 am on empty streets might be going away. The strong will have to adapt.

Dunners2011 said:

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Having the license plate solves nothing for this. The suspect has to be identified. Can't put the car in jail. And without witnesses and a clear view of the driver you won't be able to charge anyone with this.

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Of course it doesnt. I mean, not like you can look up the LP number and get a name, address, etc of the refistrant of that number. Nope, that cant be done.

Drive 8mph over the limit though? That is definitely worth the time to issue a citation.

schmellba99 said:

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Dunners2011 said:

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Having the license plate solves nothing for this. The suspect has to be identified. Can't put the car in jail. And without witnesses and a clear view of the driver you won't be able to charge anyone with this.

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Of course it doesnt. I mean, not like you can look up the LP number and get a name, address, etc of the refistrant of that number. Nope, that cant be done.

Drive 8mph over the limit though? That is definitely worth the time to issue a citation.

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What's that going to prove? If the driver doesn't stop and admit to it, or no witnesses, or no video..how is just getting a LP to police going to help with anything. If that works, I'll go and say this (person I don't like) swiped me, hit me and give PD his LP #.

Seems like that would be a good insurance scam if they went after people, bc he said she said.