I read Lynn Lauren’s letter (The News, June 3) with interest, because earlier this year a really good friend of mine bought a new Honda CRV. This person loves her car and usually parks well away from other vehicles.
Anyway, mid morning during the week a couple of months ago, she parked at a big store parking lot. There were very few cars in the lot at the time.
When she came out of the store less then 30 minutes later, she saw a business card pushed under her wiper blade. The card was that of a Parksville realtor, stating that he thought a vehicle had backed into her nice shiny new car, and he even had the forethought to get the license number.
It turned out that the driver who at first denied any wrongdoing, lived locally here and was well into senior citizenship. A police officer did manage to get the person to admit to the offense, after all, their car paint was on my friend’s Honda.
The person said that they had got out of their vehicle to look at both cars, but seeing no damage, had driven off. They actually did not get out of their vehicle, that was a lie, but what is worse is the fact that the damage cost $3,300 to repair, yes $3,300.
This amount means that the nice new Honda CRV is de-valued forever, because it has to be declared that it was in an accident when it’s re-sold.
Fortunately, an observant bystander saved my friend paying an insurance deductible, which if this lying old person had their way, she would have had to pay an extra $300.
It occurred to me that a person should be able to go after the “hit and runner” or any “hitter” for that matter, for the lost value of the vehicle.
This is the way it should be, because somebody should pay for the loss and it shouldn’t be the person who was hit.
I would also like to bet that this particular person didn’t get a ticket for hit and run, because nobody was hurt in the incident.
Jim Sheppard
Parksville
