Small crash in front of me - Moral question

[Shadowcreed]

Hello everyone, story time.

So I'm a college student who lives nearby the campus - I make my way around by bike.
Last week I parked my bike on campus, went to a lecture and when I returned someone else's bike pedal was locked in between my wheel spokes. I had to get security to come by with some tools to unstuck it as the whole thing was completely crossed in my wheel. My brake was also broken as well as many of the spokes. Had to get it repaired and in the end it cost me 38 euros, quite a sum for an old bike (the wheel still has a bump in it that they couldn't repair).

So today when I cycled back from campus to my home there was this scooter who impatiently tried to cross the street, traffic was waiting for a red light and all cars weren't moving.
The guy saw me coming from the other side on my bike and got distracted since he was making speed, I assume he was deliberating if he could speed up and cut in front of me or if he should wait.
He chose to speed up, resulting in him crashing with his front wheel into the bumper of another car. Upon which he decided to speed out of there even faster.

From what I could see there was minor damage to the car, if any - but I'm certain that the driver was unable to witness the licence plate on the scooter. I had a clear view of the licence plate as the scooter hightailed out of there.

Now I was deliberating two points here; seeing as last week I also got hit by somebody damaging my property (hands up in the air if that was deliberate or not, might just have been someone else in my situation) I would have liked to be able to relay the costs to the person that caused it.

At the same time I feel that if there is minor damage done, in a case where repairs would only be for cosmetics, is it really necessary to drag people into a whole process to resolve everything?
What I'm getting at is do you think I should have stopped and notified the driver of the plate or not? (I actually did not recall the whole plate at the time, just a part of it - but perhaps that would be enough - assume for the question that I did)

I Guess you can always leave it up to the parties involved and provide as much information as you can from the sideline, would be the diplomatic answer.

 

[tippy2k2]

I see zero reason (morally or from a practical standpoint) why you should not have stopped and given the license information. I've witnessed two accidents in my life; I have stopped and given the tale of what I saw to the cops on both occasions and I would do it again if I ever saw something like that again.

Whether someone taps my car and does $5 worth of damage or they slam into it and somehow causes it to explode, that person has done something that hurt me and I should have the choice of what I want to do about it (within the law obviously; The Punisher probably shouldn't get to choose the punishment...)

Would the driver have just let it go if the damage was that little? Probably. But that should be their choice.

With your own story there, I'm shocked that you are even questioning this. You know EXACTLY how it feels to have someone skip out on the damages that they caused you and you're questioning whether you should allow that to happen to someone else. I've had my car hit and run; it's a really shitty feeling.

 

[Shadowcreed]

The reason I didn't make a case out of it was because I wasn't certain about the plate and since the damage was too minor to involve the police (in my view, that's entirely subjective, of course.) I figured I'd just not get involved.
Afterwards I do feel like I should have enabled the choice to the driver, not myself. If he figured he'd report half a plate to the police then that would be his choice and right.

No matter how small the damage you get negatively affected by someone else's actions, and that always sucks if you cannot call upon their responsibility to solve the problem they caused.

 

[happyninja42]

The reason I didn't make a case out of it was because I wasn't certain about the plate and since the damage was too minor to involve the police (in my view, that's entirely subjective, of course.) I figured I'd just not get involved.
Afterwards I do feel like I should have enabled the choice to the driver, not myself. If he figured he'd report half a plate to the police then that would be his choice and right.

No matter how small the damage you get negatively affected by someone else's actions, and that always sucks if you cannot call upon their responsibility to solve the problem they caused.

Even if you are not 100% certain about the plate, even being able to provide some of the letters/numbers in the plate, matched with the color/make of the vehicle would be helpful to narrowing it down.

As to whether or not you should bother since it was only "minor cosmetic damage". You should. What the person did was a crime, the fact that the damages were minor is sort of secondary. It might have been more serious, and if the person develops a habit of doing hit and runs, he might do it again in a more serious situation. It's a bad habit to start.

And also, those damages, while minor, are still something that the person who was hit shouldn't be responsible for paying for, if the guilty party can be held accountable. And those type things, minor as they are, if they are reported on his insurance policy, could negatively impact his insurance rates. So yeah, not really good to have it where the person who is punished is the victim.

Report the incident.

 

[gxs]

Long post summed up in short... Yes you should report it.

It's up to the driver to choose if he'll do anything about it or not. It would suck if it would happen to me and my brand new car but I for one wouldn't make a fuss over a scratch on a plastic bumper (that and the fact that I have a full insurance). But fair is fair and the guy should at least wait and apologise.

 

[Kae]

You probably should but if I'm honest I wouldn't have bothered, too much of a pain in the ass to stop and tell them, which is kinda weird because I normally stop to help people, but you know only if the problem is serious, like that car that was on fire, I grabbed a fire extinguisher opened the car and extinguished the fire, then the owner got out and tried to say something to me but I ignored her and went on my way, in any case I'm kind off an asshole but a really nice asshole.
But, no I can't say I would have bothered with that.

 

[Shadowcreed]

Regarding your own pedal problems: How did it get that bad?!! I've had to untangle pedals from spokes loads of times, I've never done any damage. Did the guy lean his bike on yours then just keep kicking it?

I cannot for the life of me figure out what he did to manage crossing his pedal into it. There were 3 spokes that got cross-locked behind the pedal - no way in a million years to untangle that without some tools. Had to pry them off. Not something you would expect when you drop your bike off for 45 minutes.

You probably should but if I'm honest I wouldn't have bothered, too much of a pain in the ass to stop and tell them, which is kinda weird because I normally stop to help people, but you know only if the problem is serious, like that car that was on fire, I grabbed a fire extinguisher opened the car and extinguished the fire, then the owner got out and tried to say something to me but I ignored her and went on my way, in any case I'm kind off an asshole but a really nice asshole.
But, no I can't say I would have bothered with that.

sort of my view on it at the time, too. Seemed to be quite a hassle to get the attention of the driver, provide them with half-arsed information altogether while delaying traffic more. After I got home I figured those were mostly excuses for me to not get involved, which I regret, even though I don't really feel it would be worthwhile to make a fuss about it - in the end that's not my call.