I was the victim of hit and run 3x. Well 4x if you include my wife, which I posted about upthread.
All 3x were off the same nature: I parked my motorcycle and then someone bumped into it and knocked it over. 2 of those times were when my bike was brand new (new BMWs are expensive!). I couldn’t believe it, the bike was only 2-3 months old!
#2 was in front of a motorcycle store, no less. It was in the parking lot (of the old Road Rider in San Jose CA) and it was witnessed. I was in the store when someone ran in and yelled Hey! Someone just knocked over a new Beemer! The asshole had already taken off.
#3 was when that same bike was parked in a hotel parking lot. I came out to the bike, only to find it knocked over. Working with Security, we watched their video of the car knocking it over, starting to drive off (in defense of drivers, it is easy to not realize that you just knocked over a parked motorcycle), then he stopped and reversed and presumably stopped to look at the bike, and then he drove off. Asshole.
#1 was with my older bike. I was parked at the bank and at the ATM, an outdoor ATM. I heard the bike being knocked over. I turned around and saw a young teenager behind the wheel, his window was down, his father in the passenger seat, and I heard his father say to him, “Go. Go! GO!” I closed the distance between us in a heartbeat. I should have talked to the young, practicing teenager and said to him don’t listen to that asshole. But I didn’t. The bike wasn’t damaged. I just picked it up.
My motorcycle has been tipped over by a car a 4th time, but I did that one. When you do it to yourself it really pisses you off, right?
Did you decide to just drive off so you could keep the experiences consistent?
I’ve chased someone who was very drunk down the freeway when we realized he had an unbelted child in the back seat. We called 911 and went just fast enough to keep them in sight. The car spun out before the cops actually got there, so we pulled over down the road and were surprised to see it blaze by a few moments later. So, we kept the car in sight again. They thankfully did actually pull over once the cops showed up. According to the dispatcher my wife spoke with, the poor kid was drunk, as well.
Yeah, hang out by a liquor store and you’ll see it quite often here in Chicago, too. Hell, I’ve been known to do it myself in my drinking days, but I would try not to be too blatant about it. I’d be surprised if the police had time to pursue it.
Alcohol and Indiana have a tense relationship. There was about a 1 in 6 probability the cop belonged to a Christian denomination that eschews alcohol. The state only began allowing alcohol sales on Sunday a couple of years ago, and then, stores can’t open until noon. Gotta be sober in the pews, I guess.
We also have a number of sober counties, and some weird laws, like, that a restaurant next to a church can’t get an alcohol license. There’s one in Bloomington next to an Episcopal church, one that has Champagne breakfasts on Easter, wine and cheese receptions every time there’s a guest speaker, and open bars in the social hall at weddings and funerals (my father was good friends with the rector, who actually came over to the synagogue to deliver a eulogy for my father, and I had a good friend in high school whose family went there, and then she was married there).
I don’t know off-hand. It’s just something I’ve heard a lot. From teachers, professors, sergeants, people who claim to have come from them. Never questioned it, because I know enough dry homes and churches.
But now that I think about it, I can’t name one. I supposed it could be something from the past-- maybe there were dry counties in the very late 20tc century, but no more. Or maybe there are dry townships, and people don’t know the difference. I can think off-hand of a few townships I haven’t see liquor stores in, but they small enough not to have movie theaters either, and one hasn’t even got a Dairy Queen.
And yeah, the expression is “dry” not “sober.” I don’t know why I said that.
Ref this, Indiana has until rather recently had some pretty strict limitations.
Also ref this, as of 2023 Indiana doesn’t have dry counties.
Whether indiana did have dry (or semi-dry) counties in the recent past I didn’t bother to dig up.
But it is “interesting” to look at that article’s map of US dry counties and note that Arkansas, always a fun-loving forward-thinking sort of place, is really the last bastion of widespread fully dry-countyism. Several other states are highly alcohol-limiting, but AR is definitely “leading” the charge to dryness.