A guy is stopped at a stop light. Another vehicle comes up from behind, doesn’t stop in time, and just slightly bumps the front car.
the two drivers pull over to the curb, and get out to talk and check out the damage. The bumped driver observes that there was no damage to either car. However, he also observes that the driver who bumped him is very drunk.
So, bumped driver,without mentioning bumpings intoxicated state, says that they should call the police because it was an accident.
Bumping driver, knowing he is drunk, wants nothing less than the cops showing up, and offers to pay for any damage right then and there.
bumped driver insists that there is $999 damage. Bumper, not wanting to go to jail, agrees, and pays the amount.(let’s assume he had a grand minus one on him.) Bumped driver takes the money, calls bumper a cab, and drivers back to the tavern parking lot…where he waits for another drunk to come out, and “bump” him at the stop light down the street.
Is this guy doing anything illegal? Keep in mind, he did not mention the drunks state, saying he should call the police only for the accident, so how could it be blackmail? Accidents under 1000 damage need not be report (unless there is injuries) so he didn’t break the law not calling the cops. Also, he didn’t cause the driver to bump him. He mearly sat stopped at the traffic light.
Of course, he did sit in the bar parking lot waiting for his pigion, but what law does that break?
Anyway, my brother told me this story. Sounds like a good (but risky) way to make a good buck off drunk drivers.
Without going into other factors, the bumpee made a false claim ($999 damages, when there wasn’t any). Using that false claim, he has extorted moneys from others. This is usually illegal.
Well, intentionally getting into an accident to incur liability is fraud. Exaggerating the amount of damages to prevent the person from being arrested is extortion.
What if the drunk had said “I want to settle this right now. How much do you want to call it a night?” Then the guy would only be stating how much he wanted, not how much the damage actually was.
There’s still the issue of the criminal scheme to gt into the accident in the first place on the part of the bumpee. People actually do this; try to get rear-ended and then jump out holding their necks.
And, come to think of it, it would probably still be extortion as well, even if the drunk initiated it. If he says “How much to forget this?” and you say “$999 dollars” with the implication “or else I report your criminal activity”, it’s probably extortion.
I dig. The intent to get into an accident I got from “waiting for his pigeon” and “waits for another drunk to come down the street”. Apparently he’s intending to get into accidents and make cash. A jury might find otherwise, but we already know his intent greater than the jury would. I don’t know how you could intentionally coax multiple drunks into rear-ending you at a stoplight, but if the guy has figured out how, it’s a no-no.
And the actual saying of “or else” might not be necessary if you can infer it from the circumstances. If he’s getting $999 from a drunk for a $50 dent, and the amount at which you must call the cops just happens to be $1000, you could reasonably infer his intentions weren’t entirely honorable. Of course, if the wealthy drunk happily pays it and they both go on their merry ways, nothing ever comes of it. But a crime was still committed.
ha ha ha!
There have been many times in my life that I’ve had $999 or more in cash on me.
…But never after I’ve just come staggering out of a bar.:rolleyes:
Hey,'Duke (get it?:D) if you spent as much time maybe working a job as you do thinking up these hairbrained, illegal schemes, you would be worth quite a chunk of change by now.
then we could wait for you to come staggering out of a bar and…:p:p:p:p:p:p:p
As long as the other guy(the one whos car was hit) is willing to go without ethics and resort to blackmail/extortion, the drunk could always say he had a unnamed sober friend driving and the friend ran away. Who the cops gonna ticket?
Of course, this would mean no witnesses. Or it might work even better if there are two drunks in the hitting car to swear that a third guy ran off.
Given a witness at the scene who directly denies this, I would wager this sort of excuse would not work. After all, the policeman would start asking followup questions, and even then, drunk drivers who have rearended someone don’t nearly get as much benefit of the doubt as sober people who have been rearended.
ha ha ha!