People are becoming as criminal as their president.
Nearly 20 percent run from a car crash scene Published Sat, Oct 22, 2005 ADVERTISEMENT
HILTON HEAD ISLAND -- Some do it because their driver's license is suspended. Others do it because they don't have car insurance. There are even those who do it because they don't want anyone to smell the alcohol on their breath.
In any case, numerous motorists involved in collisions are taking the low road out -- far away from the crash site. And it's mostly because they have something to hide from authorities.
Since January 2003, at least one motorist in five has left the crash scene, about 17.8 percent of the 6,324 crashes reported in southern Beaufort County, according to the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office.
And that's just a fraction of the actual incidents, Sheriff P.J. Tanner said, because many of the crashes go unreported.
"The problem is those driving who should not (legally) be driving," Tanner said. "If we had more motorists follow the law, we would have less (traffic) violations, collisions and citations."
Tanner said driving under suspension is the
No. 1 reason motorists leave a collision scene. Another factor is motorists who have outstanding warrants for their arrests.
But the issues isn't that black and white, Tanner said, because the reports only reflect the claims of the drivers. A lot of people won't accept
responsibility for the crash, which leads to a number of motorists filing false reports.
"It's kind of like speeding violations," Tanner said. "I've heard every excuse in the book as to why somebody isn't responsible for speeding."
Drivers operating motor vehicles without insurance is another main reason drivers will leave the scene of an accident, one the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles is hoping to curb with a new electronic insurance reporting
system.
In years past, the DMV has had to file paperwork on motorists who don't have insurance, which hasn't been easily accessible.
But its new reporting system, implemented in March 2004, has shown broad increases in identifying motorists with lapsed insurance coverage and reduced the problem, said Lotte Devlin, policy and planning administrator for the DMV.
A report on the effectiveness of the system released Oct. 15 concluded that the DMV identified 124,790 uninsured vehicles statewide so far in 2005, an increase of 81,645 over the 2003 reporting period, the report states.
Of the crashes reported in the state this year,
68 percent of the motorists involved in the 134,124 crashes had car insurance, the report states. That's up from 59 percent of 133,309 crashes in 2003.
In the new system, once a vehicle has a lapse in coverage, the insurance provider sends its information to the DMV. The department sends the vehicle's owner a notice requiring them to show proof of insurance within 20 days.
If the owner does not do that, the DMV suspends their driver's license and charges them $5 per day of lapsed coverage up to $200. It also charges the vehicle owner $200 to get their license reinstated.
"We're identifying more uninsured motorists," Devlin said, "and we're getting better at cutting of their ability to go undetected."
However, the system is unable to track motorists who never had car insurance, a problem that's fairly widespread among some of the poorer populations of the county, Tanner said.
When involved in a car crash, the motorist who is not at fault is being left behind financially by not having the responsible person's insurance information in order to cover their damage.
That's one reason why the S.C. Highway Patrol encourages motorists involved in car crashes to be observant, patrol spokesman Lance Cpl. Dwight Green said. Notice as many details of the vehicle as possible, including the license plate number, make and model of the vehicle; a physical description of the driver; and what area of the vehicle was damaged.
"Normally when they give us that information," Green said, "we usually find the (suspect) vehicle and the owner."
