Failure to Stop and residue paint

Failure to Stop and residue paint

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anonymous-user

Original Poster:

53 months

Thursday 11th December 2014
quotequote all
My colleague in work mentioned last night someone has driven into his partners brand new Vx Adam and drove off leaving the drivers door and rear 1/4 panel quite badly damaged.

Now he has the first four letters of the plate and knows the cars colour and the police have narrowed it down to 174 cars but point blank said they will not go through them all.

I know its a bit CSI but from the paint transfer would he be able to identify the paint code and subsequently the make / model?

Retroman

961 posts

132 months

Thursday 11th December 2014
quotequote all
I doubt it.
Even if somehow you could, if they deny they were at the place and deny the accident happened, you're not likely to get anywhere.

He'd be best to chalk this up to a bad experience if there's no CCTV nearby and claim on his own insurance.

TooMany2cvs

29,008 posts

125 months

Thursday 11th December 2014
quotequote all
His insurers could hire private investigators to do that bit - if they thought it worthwhile. In reality, it'd be a waste of everybody's time and money, and they'll just put it down as an at-fault, since the culprit is effectively untraceable. It's an absolute wild goose chase.

Let's say they trace all 174 possible cars, and none have corresponding damage. What then?
Let's say they trace all 174 possible cars, and find one with corresponding damage, then the driver says "Nope, I was nowhere near." What then?
Let's say they trace all 174 possible cars, and there are a dozen with corresponding damage, and nobody who admits to knowing anything. What then?
Any of those situations, you have a large bill needing paying and unreliable evidence insufficient to prove anything.

For a minor damage-only incident, there's no way the Police should even be considering devoting that amount of time.

over_the_hill

3,185 posts

245 months

Thursday 11th December 2014
quotequote all
There might be 174 cars with a reg plate AB14 *** that are blue nationally but how many are registered to keepers within say 20 miles of you. That might narrow it down a lot.

TooMany2cvs

29,008 posts

125 months

Thursday 11th December 2014
quotequote all
over_the_hill said:
There might be 174 cars with a reg plate AB14 *** that are blue nationally but how many are registered to keepers within say 20 miles of you. That might narrow it down a lot.
Might it? Since when did cars not travel outside a 20 mile radius...? They might be the first to speak to, but you'd still need to look nationally if they all denied everything.

carreauchompeur

17,830 posts

203 months

Thursday 11th December 2014
quotequote all
To be fair, the fact that the Police have even produced the list of potentials is a lot of work for a damage only accident. If it was a rare car, maybe, however any further investigation in these circumstances is completely untenable.

The last set of cuts have started to kick in, and are incredibly savage. Expect forces to be having to say 'no' to requests for service far more serious than this one. The fact a chief constable has stuck his head above the parapet and said his Force is likely to be bankrupt by 2018 illustrates the scale of the problem.

And there's 20% more to come off budgets...

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

53 months

Thursday 11th December 2014
quotequote all
As i said he has the first 4 digits; just seems despicable that there is nothing he can do. Best course of action will be to knock on the neighbours homes and see if there have been any visitors ... Obviously they may not own up but its worth a try.
This is what the police advised as well as keeping an eye out for the car IF it returns and they can get the full reg etc.

I would be very surprised if there is no damage on the car as the Adam is ruined!

FYI they live in a small Cul-de-Sac within a side street so its highly likely the car was a visitor.

Thanks for the response Gents; thought it may be a tad CSI 'esque'


anonymous-user

Original Poster:

53 months

Thursday 11th December 2014
quotequote all
carreauchompeur said:
To be fair, the fact that the Police have even produced the list of potentials is a lot of work for a damage only accident. If it was a rare car, maybe, however any further investigation in these circumstances is completely untenable.

The last set of cuts have started to kick in, and are incredibly savage. Expect forces to be having to say 'no' to requests for service far more serious than this one. The fact a chief constable has stuck his head above the parapet and said his Force is likely to be bankrupt by 2018 illustrates the scale of the problem.

And there's 20% more to come off budgets...
A lot of work? I'd question that as the officer who my friend reported this too had teh details whilst on the phone within 15 seconds of him giving the details he had; and for the response above with respect to corresponding damage the nature of the damage in relation the that on his car along with any corresponding paint / damage would prove quite a link - I'd assume.

Tanguero

4,535 posts

200 months

Thursday 11th December 2014
quotequote all
Even back in the day when there was a Home Office Forensic Science Service, while this sort of investigation is perfectly possible, it is sufficiently time consuming that vehicle paint examination was almost exclusively reserved for when there was either a fatality or a serious crime. (Or when the Assistant Chief Constables car was run into while parked... but that's another story.)

mph1977

12,467 posts

167 months

Thursday 11th December 2014
quotequote all
carreauchompeur said:
To be fair, the fact that the Police have even produced the list of potentials is a lot of work for a damage only accident. If it was a rare car, maybe, however any further investigation in these circumstances is completely untenable.

The last set of cuts have started to kick in, and are incredibly savage. Expect forces to be having to say 'no' to requests for service far more serious than this one. The fact a chief constable has stuck his head above the parapet and said his Force is likely to be bankrupt by 2018 illustrates the scale of the problem.

And there's 20% more to come off budgets...
With regard to the ch Cons in question it was Lincolnshire which has some unique challenges for policing , the centres of pipulation covered by Lincs are all 30 + minutes on blues from each other down dreadful road

Lincolnshire is very sparsely populated, it's trunk routes of low quality and well down the list for any HA presence.

Lincolnshire ?pioneered? the multi hatting of specialist officers 20+ years ago as even then it's traffic dept could only afford to dual crew by being area car/ARV and traffic combined.

Add in the relative inability for mutual aid as Notts is also underfunded compared to other forces with a large urban area...and norfolk have only just got cars with stripes and neenaws as bells simply no longer cut it...

TooMany2cvs

29,008 posts

125 months

Thursday 11th December 2014
quotequote all
Trexthedinosaur said:
As i said he has the first 4 digits
Assuming it's a post-01 plate, then that leaves 26 x 26 x 26 possible plates. 17,576. Filter by make and colour, and that's your 174. To do ANYTHING above that requires visits - or, at the very least, phone calls - to 174 people.

Steve57

2,159 posts

241 months

Thursday 11th December 2014
quotequote all
Reminds me of a few years ago,

Driving wife/2 week old daughter to clinic for a check up. car comes round the corner on the wrong side of the road so i swerve luckily into a side road but still mirrors collide and ours is destroyed. (08 Kuga) gather our thoughts, look back and other car is gone!!!!!! spin round to see if i can find them with no joy at all. when we return to the accident location the person that was behind us is still there. stop exchange details but neither of us got the reg, just knew it was a smallish 4x4 like ours, picked up the remains of our mirror and the cover from theirs. reported to the local station as was enroute where we were going anyway. When i looked into it (detective work) found it was a nissan Qashqai.

usual, no reg so nothing mr plod could do. 3 days later i get a call from a friend within 1 mile from us they are standing with a car missing a drivers side mirror cover. later that day i went passed the car with the mirror cover and it matched perfectly. so report the reg which they did a check and sent a letter to the owners. Turns out it was leased, eventually the owner was contacted and they denied all knowledge of the accident, yet couldnt explain the mirror.

no further action by anyone. Apart from me being £120 down for a replacement mirror.

Bigends

5,412 posts

127 months

Thursday 11th December 2014
quotequote all
over_the_hill said:
There might be 174 cars with a reg plate AB14 *** that are blue nationally but how many are registered to keepers within say 20 miles of you. That might narrow it down a lot.
These checks can be narrowed right down to post code areas on PNC or a quick five minute click through the records traced to check on those that may be from the locality of the accident - its a case of someone having time to do them

Edited by Bigends on Thursday 11th December 17:26

Squiggs

1,520 posts

154 months

Thursday 11th December 2014
quotequote all
TooMany2cvs said:
Trexthedinosaur said:
As i said he has the first 4 digits
Assuming it's a post-01 plate, then that leaves 26 x 26 x 26 possible plates. 17,576. Filter by make and colour, and that's your 174. To do ANYTHING above that requires visits - or, at the very least, phone calls - to 174 people.
^^^^^^ What he just said.

Knowing the make, model, year of registration and colour of the damaging vehicle probably threw up on a data base that they were only produced in one shade of that colour (blue, red, black or whatever) and there's 174 of them in the country.
So the Police have already narrowed it down to 174 vehicles - knowing the actual paint code won't narrow it down any further as there's 174 of those cars with the same code.
And you can't realistically expect them to investigate any further on what is (in the big scheme of things) a very minor/trivial incident.

Edited by Squiggs on Thursday 11th December 18:55

ging84

8,829 posts

145 months

Friday 12th December 2014
quotequote all
it'd utterly pointless
the driver would just deny it and it would be the end of it
my car was scraped by an old lady who was a habitual car scraper locally, witness left a note with the reg and make, which we didn't really need as we would have only needed 1 guess to work it out who had done it.
Unfortunately no contact details on the note, we reported it, there was obvious paint transfer on both cars, but she just denied it and that was the end of it

TooMany2cvs

29,008 posts

125 months

Friday 12th December 2014
quotequote all
Squiggs said:
Knowing the make, model, year of registration and colour of the damaging vehicle probably threw up on a data base that they were only produced in one shade of that colour (blue, red, black or whatever) and there's 174 of them in the country.
So the Police have already narrowed it down to 174 vehicles - knowing the actual paint code won't narrow it down any further as there's 174 of those cars with the same code.
More likely is that they're searching for the V5C entry saying "silver". That might cover several different shades, and there might be a few more that half the public would say are "silver", but are on the V5C as "grey". I doubt that DVLA or the police have access to which particular paint code(s) are on any registered vehicle, and certainly don't after a colour change.

Squiggs

1,520 posts

154 months

Friday 12th December 2014
quotequote all
TooMany2cvs said:
Squiggs said:
Knowing the make, model, year of registration and colour of the damaging vehicle probably threw up on a data base that they were only produced in one shade of that colour (blue, red, black or whatever) and there's 174 of them in the country.
So the Police have already narrowed it down to 174 vehicles - knowing the actual paint code won't narrow it down any further as there's 174 of those cars with the same code.
More likely is that they're searching for the V5C entry saying "silver". That might cover several different shades, and there might be a few more that half the public would say are "silver", but are on the V5C as "grey". I doubt that DVLA or the police have access to which particular paint code(s) are on any registered vehicle, and certainly don't after a colour change.
You're probably correct on that.
Silver (as you've mentioned it as an example) is a strange one ......
On most paint mixing systems if you don't know or can't find the code you can narrow it down by entering make, year, model and then the basic colour - blue for instance. It will come back with the different blues that model was produced in for that year.
But usually there is no option to search silver - silvers have to be searched by entering grey - which is a bit strange as when you think about it there are very few 'proper' grey cars but hundreds of silver ones.
Having never owned a silver car I don't know what they are listed as on a V5C - silver or grey - or what the DVLA would consider the cut off point to be between silver and grey.


TooMany2cvs

29,008 posts

125 months

Friday 12th December 2014
quotequote all
Squiggs said:
Having never owned a silver car I don't know what they are listed as on a V5C - silver or grey - or what the DVLA would consider the cut off point to be between silver and grey.
DVLA delegate that decision to whoever fills in the form when the car is first registered. They certainly don't inspect vehicles or approve colour codes in any way.

The eye of the beholder comes into it, too - I used to have a pale metallic blue CX. SWMBO swore blind that it was silver.

4rephill

5,040 posts

177 months

Friday 12th December 2014
quotequote all
At the end of the day, it's a non-injury incident with limited information about the other vehicle involved so the Police are not going to spend hundreds of man hours trying to track down every possible vehicle nationwide who might have been responsible (and I seriously doubt they bother checking every possible vehicle within a 20 mile radius "just in case" either!).

Had someone been injured then they would make far more effort to track down the owner of the offending vehicle, but as it stands, it's simply not worth their time and effort (that's just the harsh reality of the situation).

I doubt that any insurance company would even bother putting an investigator on this case even.

This is one of those unfortunate situations that you simply have to put down to: "Scensoredt happens!", and it's why you pay for insurance.

Shwar25

6,565 posts

196 months

Friday 12th December 2014
quotequote all
Steve57 said:
Reminds me of a few years ago,

Driving wife/2 week old daughter to clinic for a check up. car comes round the corner on the wrong side of the road so i swerve luckily into a side road but still mirrors collide and ours is destroyed. (08 Kuga) gather our thoughts, look back and other car is gone!!!!!! spin round to see if i can find them with no joy at all. when we return to the accident location the person that was behind us is still there. stop exchange details but neither of us got the reg, just knew it was a smallish 4x4 like ours, picked up the remains of our mirror and the cover from theirs. reported to the local station as was enroute where we were going anyway. When i looked into it (detective work) found it was a nissan Qashqai.

usual, no reg so nothing mr plod could do. 3 days later i get a call from a friend within 1 mile from us they are standing with a car missing a drivers side mirror cover. later that day i went passed the car with the mirror cover and it matched perfectly. so report the reg which they did a check and sent a letter to the owners. Turns out it was leased, eventually the owner was contacted and they denied all knowledge of the accident, yet couldnt explain the mirror.

no further action by anyone. Apart from me being £120 down for a replacement mirror.
I had something awfully similar earlier this year, a Focus clashed mirrors with me, mine was still intact but I stopped as hers wasn't. What happened next shocked me, She attempted to grab my keys out of the ignition, cutting my hand with her talons, so I closed the window and attempted to drive off, she stood in front of my car and shouted towards her car.

What came next I can only describe as a fking giant of a man came running over, while I was reversing he got a carefully aimed kick on the rear quarter panel, causing the need for replacement (New Scirocco - 2 weeks before the end of the lease!)

They then ran back to their car and drove off, I checked my car, saw the damage and attempted to follow, couldn't see them anywhere, so continued to work. Once at work I called the local Ford dealership who had just had a woman matching the description in, and was even on CCTV.

I provided all of this to the police, reg numbers, descriptions, they photographed my injuries ect. A few weeks later I had a phonecall from the police, they had traced the car (took me about 5 minutes to get owners details) but the driver denied all knowledge of been in the area, so the police decided on NFA.