Standard disclaimers. I am not a lawyer. You are not a lawyer. Nobody’s giving anyone Actual Legal Advice.
That being said, here’s the scoop. A friend of mine was the victim in a hit and run accident on the freeway recently. A Hummer crashed into her, causing her to spin out, slide backwards down the freeway and totalled her car. Luckily she was not injured.
She actually made eye contact with the other driver, who promptly hit the gas and zoomed off, leaving her in her smashed car on the shoulder. The Hummer didn’t have license plates, just the paper dealer plates (she got the name of the dealer in Reno).
She tracked down the dealer in an effort to find out who the owner of this new car was, and the dealer refused to provide any information, citing “confidentiality”. The CHP has evidently not done much either.
Can this be right? Can a car dealer refuse to provide information that can track down someone who was involved in a hit and run accident?
As a private individual I can’t see where your friend would have any ability to compel the car dealer to give her any information. If the police are going after this information, they may be able to compel the dealer to give it if they have enough indication that it is useful evidence. The person who really has a dog in this fight is your friend’s insurance company, if they are currently on the hook to pay for the totaled car. So they should be highly motivated to track down the driver and get that insurance company to pay.
I’m glad your friend wasn’t hurt. Good luck to her.
Yes Cunctator, she called the CHP and had them on the scene. She said that the officer treated it like a misdemeanor (I assume it would have been handled differently if there had been blood all over the place). Since her insurance company is on the hook for the price of a new car I assume that they will indeed be doing their own investigating…
This is a tricky situation. I can think of a few ways that your friend could get the information, but I’d need more information myself to give any kind of meaningful advice. At that point, I’d be giving legal advice after all.
You can try http://www.lawguru.com/cgi/bbs/ This is a website where real lawyers from your state will answer your legal questions. I’m on there, but not for CA.
She IS a lawyer (not in traffic or injury related stuff though). I suggested a Sternly Worded Letter on lawyerly letterhead might get some positive response and she may do this, right now she’s just kinda worn out from the experience and I guess doesn’t want to start shooting off cannons this week.
Dunno about the deductible. Any injuries she got were apparently pretty minor (she said that she was more shaken up than hurt) - nothing that she mentioned, anyhow. My hat is off to the safety engineers in Sweden.
Posted question to lawguru.com, I’ll see what someone says, thanks for the tip!
Until they can track down the driver of the Hummer she must have some injury. Do you hear me, she MUST have some injury. Oftentimes, pain and discomfort doesn’t show up immediately after the accident.
If the other driver had stopped, shown concern and taken some responsibility then it might be honorable to take the lumps and tough it out. She isn’t “lucky” to be alive, she was assualted with a deadly weapon by a criminal.
If the case is as you describe then it is best to use all resources to track down the guilty party. If it is just a scratch on the arm then use it to pursue the criminal. Someone who hits and runs deserves no mercy. People that drive Hummers deserve no mercy. Put the two together and the death penalty starts to sound somewhat reasonable.
You gotta look at this from the dealership’s point of view. Somebody they have never heard of calls out of the blue and want information on one of their customers citing an accident. First off what proof does the dealership have that an accident occured? Just the phone call from the victim.
Secondly maybe this dealership sold a Hummer to a movie star (or other famous person) in the last couple of months. Can you say Rebecca Shaeffer?
Thirdly, the people that bought Hummers spent at least 50 Large each with that dealership. If I spent 50 grand with a company, and they gave out my personal data to anybody that called it would be the last 50 grand I ever spent with them.
Lastly how many cars does a dealer sell in a month? 50? 75? Figure you need to go through 3 months of records by hand to find how many of the cars they sold were black Hummers. That would take at least an hour or two. Who is going to pay for the employees time?
Now if I were the car dealer, and I got an offical request (police or insurance co) I would be more than happy to comply. If Joe Blow calls, the answer would be no.
It will take all of 5 to 30 seconds to figure out who had the car.
Granted, the dealer shouldn’t just give out information. However, the dealer has an ethical responsibility to help with the aprehension of a criminal. But then, how many car dealers have any ethics? Car dealer - ethics, that’s an oxymoron.
Paper dealer plates = the license plate sized piece of plastic that say Joe’s Hummer Reno or some such. Bolted on where a license plate goes until the offical license plate arrives in the mail. In this case we are not discussing a actual license plate issued to the dealer.
In California hit and run is only a felony if there is bodily injury IIRC.
Spartydog 5-30 seconds to do the search? Damn you can flip through file folder way faster than I can. Looking at the Hummer website they come in 7 colors.
Now let’s make a few assumptions here.
Dealer sell 50 cars per month
Each color is equally represented
It can take up to 3 months to get license plates (most times it is less than this, but to be sure figure 3 months)
3 X 50 = 150 / 7 = 21 black hummers.
Great now you have 21 names. Twenty of them are innocent. How do you choose?
So you now have 21 file folders in front of you. These folders contain everything you need to know (and a whole bunch of shit you have no need to know) about the car and the people who bought it. This information that you have no need to know includes credit records, bank accounts #s, credit scores, do you want me to go on?
the only missing piece of information is which one of these 21 SUV was in California on the day and time in question and got into an accident. :smack: [sarcasm]That’s the problem with deal folders, they always leave out that one piece of information you really need. [/sarcasm]
I am really surprised at peoples attitude here. If somebody came in and posted a pit thread about a goat fletching car dealer that gave my personal information to some asshole that called up and said that a car the color of mine with dealer plates from Goat-fletching motors (where I bought my car) the thread would be 3 pages long by now with comments about how the dealer is an asshole, don’t buy from them again, and go ahead and sue for good measure.
In these days of stalking (see link in previous post) and identity theft, I am shocked at the responses in this thread.
Look I want the asshole that hit and run strung up by his short hairs and his privates bitten by rabid bats, but if I was a customer of that dealership that was not involved I would be righteously pissed if the dealer gave out my personal info. (DUH!)
As Rick said put yourself in the dealers place. A private citizen calls up and effectively demands access to your customer data for the purposes of pursuing a legal case. The dealer would be an idiot if he had any response but the one your friend received.
If she is a lawyer she should understand that the dealer is not going to give out any customer information until some form of legally compelling document or citation of applicable law is produced by the authorities so he can cover his ass regarding the release of the information. As a lawyer what honestly was her expectation when she called him? That he was going to get right on the case for her?
Going direct to the dealer personally is the least useful strategy in this case. The police are probably figuring only property damage is involved so why should they bust their humps with the complexities involved in chasing an out of state entity for something that will effectively be a fight between two insurance companies (the dealers and your friends). As Harriet the Spry indicated this is really your insurance companies fight if they choose to pursue it with the dealer, or they may just settle her claim and move on rather than expend legal resources, time and money to leverage the information out of him.
Maybe they are much more laid back on the left coast but on the east coast dealers are loath to issue paper licence plates. Usually you leave the lot with permanent plates on the car. Temp plates might be issued for a car being transported out of state. Otherwise. plates get transferred from the old vehicle to the new vehicle and/or the dealer visits the license bureau and picks up plates. Dealer plates and temp plates are strictly controlled and the OP shows why. The dealer will probably know off the top of his head which Hummers are running around with dealer plates or temporary plates.
I never suggested that the dealer release information to just anyone. However, they should assist in the apprehension of a criminal which they can do by showing some concern and offering to work with the authorities.
