Gather round, Oppo, for the story of how I chased down a hit and run in my underwear

"Cash Rewards" (cashrewards)
11/26/2019 at 13:51 • Filed to: None

A little over 4 years ago, my wife and I were settling in for bed. She was awfully pregnant, and we had an 18 month old already. We hear a loud noise. “What’s that?”, asks the wife. I start to say “it’s just the garbage can or something”, but I don’t believe it either, do I grab my glasses and hop out of bed. I look out the window and see a Mercury mountaineer ass deep in my GTI, street parked legally. “Mother fucker hit my car!” I tell, and run out the door to get their attention.

Oppo, did I stop to out on shoes? I did not. Shirt? Nah. Pants? Not a chance. In the late summers of Virginia, j sleep in my underwear.

Did the person stop? They did not, but there was a stop sign a block away, and I was hoping to get close enough to read the plate, so I start running. They blow through the stop sign and keep going.

I’m about to give up, when I see them pull over up ahead. Driver gets out to check out the damage on her bumper. She is middle aged and drunk in a Monday. I run up, memorize her plate, then ask “hey, you just hit my car back there?” She looks at me in my boxers and says “I didn’t hit anything”, gets in her car, and bolts.

I run home, saying her plate over and over. Walk inside. Wife. Is. Pissed. Put her off for a second, hot down the plate, call the cops. Give wife attention. “What the hell is wrong with you! You didn’t say anything and just ran out the door! You left me, pregnant, with a toddler and just ran off into the night! What if they had a gun?”

Me: it was just some drunk old lady

Wife: you didn’t know that when you ran out the door!

Me: concedes point.

Cops show up, say they already got her. Give me her I do and insurance. Lives next block up. Turned a street too soon, made a three point turn, and backed into my car.

I try to go through her insurance, but give up after a few days because they won’t pay without talking to her first and she won’t respond to their calls and emails. USAA takes care of me.

Cops ask if I’d cooperate pressing charges on the hit and run to go along with the dui. At this point she had not cooperated with insurance, not offered to pay, and not even stopped by to say sorry. So yes, town prosecutor, I’d love to cooperate. She cuts a deal last moment, day of trial, when I actually show up to testify. Pretty sure it still involved jail time.

Oppo, I swear on my Gold Membership that this is completely true.

This had been story time with Cash Rewards

DISCUSSION (30)

Azrek > Cash Rewards
11/26/2019 at 14:11

I came for the Frequent Flyer rewards. I wasn’t disappointed.

smobgirl > Cash Rewards
11/26/2019 at 14:12

Did you ever see her again? I li ke to think if I did something that dumb in my neighborhood I’d at least have the dignity to move.

CB > Cash Rewards
11/26/2019 at 14:13

I believe every line of this.

Cash Rewards > smobgirl
11/26/2019 at 14:14

They had a yard sale that my wife and I walked past, and she started chatting us up. I had to leave before I said something. My wife was gracious and let it go

Snuze: Needs another Swede > Cash Rewards
11/26/2019 at 14:16

Great story!

For what it’s worth, nobody ever better do that to me, they’d be lucky if I showed up in underwear!!!

And I love the pup, she is so cute! And looks like she’s getting big!!!

Cash Rewards > CB
11/26/2019 at 14:17

I told my wife I posted this after all these years.

“I was so mad at you for running out like that".

CB > Cash Rewards
11/26/2019 at 14:19

I’m personally enjoying the thought of your neighbours’ reactions if they saw what happened.

Cash Rewards > Snuze: Needs another Swede
11/26/2019 at 14:19

I think I had just started posting and stopped lurking, so I never got around to telling it. Thanks!

And yeah, gaining about 2-2.5 lbs per week. Vet guessing that puts her around 60 full grown, which would be good.

Cash Rewards > CB
11/26/2019 at 14:21

That brief conversation between a pissed off half n aked guy trying to keep it cool, and a dru nk middle aged lady must have been a sight to see

TheRealBicycleBuck > Cash Rewards
11/26/2019 at 14:50

Excellent!

VincentMalamute-Kim > Cash Rewards
11/26/2019 at 14:50

Fast thinking and reaction time. I didn’t know what to do other than sit and watch my hit and run make a three point turn and drive off.

VincentMalamute-Kim > Cash Rewards
11/26/2019 at 14:51

Your wife is a good human. I’d hold a grudge for 50 years.

Cash Rewards > VincentMalamute-Kim
11/26/2019 at 14:54

With baby 2 on the way, I'd have been damned if I was on the hook for that deductible

Svend > Cash Rewards
11/26/2019 at 15:48

Lol. I did near the same years ago.

got woken up by a car moving back and forward up and down the street, then heard a loud shut. Got up looked out the window and saw a young lass laying in the road. Back then we used to have traffic calming measures on our street, namely a few large ‘flower beds’ jutting out into the road. I put on my boxer shorts and a pair of trainer socks and ran out. Seems the driver was looking for a particular address, got annoyed, slammed the car into reverse, hit the corner of the flower bed, then pushed the girl and the car and was about to race off. He did. Seeing the girl being looked after by two neighbours I ran after the car, it got three streets away and the driver crashed and legged it from the car before I got to him. Walked back to my street to find a quarter of the street by now had come out. We all went to each others houses, sat and drank tea or coffee until the police turned up to give statements, some went to bed while the rest stayed up and chatted and got to know each other more.

I wouldn’t dream of doing it in the U.S. though, not worth the risk eg gun, other inattentive drivers, etc...

Cash Rewards > Svend
11/26/2019 at 15:56

My wife was absolutely right in that regard. I liv e minutes away from nra headquarters. A gun was as likely as not.

Yours sounds so much more neighborly, and civilized

OPPOsaurus WRX > Cash Rewards
11/26/2019 at 16:25

good for you for not trying to repeatedly drown her on t he hood of her car

Svend > Cash Rewards
11/26/2019 at 16:34

We’ve always been a open and friendly street. Some new people had arrived and kept to themselves, this was a time we could all meet and introduce ourselves.

wkiernan > Cash Rewards
11/26/2019 at 16:40

TL, DR; but what in the world was a hit-and-run driver doing in your underwear?

wafflesnfalafel > Cash Rewards
11/26/2019 at 16:42

A t least with you only in undies she could be pretty sure that you didn’t have a gun. :)

We witnessed a hit and run a number of years ago and I chased the driver to get the plate number with my wife in the car. She was not happy, I won’t be doing that again....

Cash Rewards > wkiernan
11/26/2019 at 17:11

That got a legit laugh!

Cash Rewards > OPPOsaurus WRX
11/26/2019 at 17:22

The prosecutor had a big speech planned, I think, to convince me to testify against a neighbor so that she’d go to jail. He was a little surprised when I was all “hell yeah!” If she had just apologized at any point, offered to take care of insurance, anythin g, maybe I wouldn't have. Fuck her

mXxxxXm24 /O/ /O/ > Cash Rewards
11/26/2019 at 17:23

Sweet sweet justice. You should have visited her in jail with some amazing looking dess ert or something and ate it slowly in front of her not saying a word.

VincentMalamute-Kim > Svend
11/26/2019 at 17:55

chatted and got to know each other more.

N ice neighbors ! That’s very pleasant to hear about.

VincentMalamute-Kim > Cash Rewards
11/26/2019 at 17:56

If she had just apologized at any point, offered to take care of insurance, anything, maybe I wouldn’t have

If she had just acted like a normal human being.

Cash Rewards > VincentMalamute-Kim
11/26/2019 at 18:14

You know, demonstrated a modicum of responsibility

Svend > VincentMalamute-Kim
11/26/2019 at 18:27

It’s curious because a Scottish lass lived with me for a while. She moved in the day after I did, as I was helping her move in I saw several different people and said hello. She asked me who they were and I said, that couple live across the landing, that person is from downstairs, those people have two little dogs and live down stairs and across the way. She then asked how I knew. I said I introduced myself as we passed each other when I moved in yesterday. She’s from a tiny Scottish town and she didn’t even know she lived literally around the corner from another colleague, FOR EIGHT YEARS!!!

I said, you Scottish are supposed to be friendly, she said yes, but we don’t talk to our neighbours.

That was alien to me as I’ve always been told to introduce myself neighbours so we can watch each other’s property or take parcels in when the other is away, or help if needed, etc...

VincentMalamute-Kim > Svend
11/27/2019 at 16:17

I said, you Scottish are supposed to be friendly, she said yes, but we don’t talk to our neighbours.

I know my immediate neighbors. Others wave from their cars when I walk the dog but don’t talk to me. If I run into any neighbor out in the yard, I’ll try to talk. A few are willing, a few are not. oh well.

You’re absolutely right about neighbors needing to look out for each other. Ideally.

Svend > VincentMalamute-Kim
11/27/2019 at 19:06

Our street isn’t as closed knit as it was 10 years ago, before some started moving for bigger premises, left home, etc... But ye’, we can go up to some doors and walk right in and say, ‘stick the kettle on’. We sign for parcels (all the delivery companies, Yodel, UPS, MyHermes, TNT, Royal Mail, Parcel Force, Amazon, DHL, DPD, etc... all know if someone is out, who to leave it with and if they are out, who next to go to).

I’m a quite large bloke and there is a large, rugby playing neighbour. When my mum passed, he didn’t say anything, just walked up to me slowly and opened his arms and gave me a big hug. We’d only known each other a few months. On the morning of my mum passing, while waiting for the Private Ambulance to come for her, I needed out the house for a while, I went to a neighbours house, sat and talked over a coffee, then went back to deal with everything that needed to be done.

VincentMalamute-Kim > Svend
11/28/2019 at 14:38

I’m really envious. I wonder if part of that is a function of English vs American culture. Or rural v suburban culture ? Or me being non-white in 99% white neighborhood? Or me being an introvert - I force myself to try to talk to neighbors.

Svend > VincentMalamute-Kim
11/28/2019 at 19:50

I’m an introvert but I guess it’s multiple things, how you were raised, your environment (the U.K. is quite densely populated, take into account, were quarter your population, one fortieth your land mass), type of accomm odation, etc.. .

As I say some north of the border don’t even bother with their neighbours, some don’t here either but you get places that get close knit while it’s often said how southern England isn’t as friendly .