Hit And Run

So today I'm frustrated because someone hit my van . . . and RAN! 

  

No note, no nothing. Gone. Like the wind. Only the wind doesn't usually leave this much damage.

Most of you know that I typically look for the silver lining: At least it happened while the car was parked and no one got hurt! But today I'm not really feelin' it.  It's only a car. Nope, not working.  It could be worse!  Right, but, as true as that is, right now, I'm SO overwhelmingly disappointed that someone at Friendswood High School would do this, just drive off, and not take responsibility. 

Just leave a note, that's all I'd ask. I'll even let you fix it without notifying insurance if you'd like so that your rates don't have to increase; no big deal. But why drive off? What makes owning up to a mistake that difficult? Why not do the right thing?

This actually happened to John's truck in my school parking lot at Open House about five years ago, only that time, one of our parents saw it happen and got a license plate number. He reported it to the authorities for us, but he'd copied the number wrong and was off by one digit so, when the police said they couldn't do anything about it, this Dad decided to do more. He watched for that truck for weeks afterward to try to help us catch the driver. Sure enough, he eventually saw the truck again and followed it home, giving us an address and a name. Of course, it was the parent of one of my students and WAY too awkward for me to do anything about it a month and a half later, so we were left with that bumper bill, too.

My son was able to walk the parking lot at FHS after he reported the fender bender this morning, trying to find the car that left its white paint in the gaping hole it left in our bumper and taking with it some of our blue paint, and he did find two potential matches. It will, however, be difficult to prove that either of those is our hit-and-run driver. And the security camera out in that lot? Per Murphy's law, it's not working. Budget cuts, I suppose. 

Am I being naive or are we still supposed to leave a note when we hit a parked car? How do we come back to doing the right thing? Today I'm at a loss, but what I do know is that it's critical that we teach the next generation to take responsibility for their actions and to be good citizens, even when surveillance cameras are broken and nobody's watching.