I witnessed a guy (middle age, overweight, driving a red ~96 subaru legacy, license plate SDJ-319) back into a parked car (black honda crv, dunno the year, maybe 2008? license plate LEL-107) this morning at the Brentwood train station. After taking pictures of the license plates of both vehicles the guy who backed into the parked car got confrontational and it seemed clear that if I left a note on the vehicle that got backed into it would be removed so I left the scene and went to work and called the police. There are 2 menu options that they have which try to dismiss you - First they make it sound like all non-injury small value vehicle collisions should be reported online, then when you have hung up, checked the website and realize that isn't useful and call them back, there is another option for non-injury collisions that basically tells you to call your insurance company - which is fucking useless if you are just a witness looking out for another dude's ride - and ends the call on you.
Next I called 311 and they were completely dismissive, said I was talking to the wrong people and they said just to call the police back and hit 0 until you get somebody, which I did, and I got through to somebody who basically refused to take any information and said I should have left a note, 3 or 4 times she said there was "nothing she could do" and I should have left a note. After arguing with her over and over and explaining that any note I left would never have made it to the owner she finally agreed to take the plate of the vehicle that got hit and notify the owner, but would only pass on my information so that the owner could call me.
It seems like at every step of the way both our city and the police just want you to go away instead of reporting these sorts of things, but as a car owner who actually gives a shit about my car this really irks me. I had to call the police 3 times, 311 once, and argue with somebody to even get them to take my information to notify the driver whose car got backed into.
We have an online reporting system with the police that only helps you if it is your car that is hit and you don't know who did it - that sounds like exactly the right sort of thing but it isn't for situations where you are just a witness and not a victim. Why not?
Okay, maybe I don't know what I am really asking here, but I am pissed off. My cars have been hit before and I wonder how many of those times somebody might have witnessed it, caught some of the other car's information and been blown off by our police system.