I called 911 and the police took 30 minutes to arrive on the scene. The officer talked to me for about 3 minutes and then threw up their hands and said they wouldn't do anything because I didn't have a plate number and couldn't identify the driver.
The police didn't even want to bother trying to get footage from nearby cameras when I called back and noted the location of several nearby security cameras that might have picked up the vehicle.
By some miracle, I wasn't seriously injured.
If it's any consolation, this is, IME, normal. Unless they stumble on a crime in progress, the cops won't do anything at all to actively attempt to catch the culprit, even when you have things like video of the car with license plates legible and it's the same car involved in a string of crimes. Maybe it's different for murder or something, but with other crimes they're basically useless, and that long predates the "defund" movement and all that.
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/29/1172775448/people-murder-unso...
Patrols are down 40% since 2020. Hit and runs and other traffic incidents are up. None of the alternate solutions to law enforcement intervention have been implemented so we're just stuck with crime increases. Like a lot of places, we're dealing with an epidemic of people stealing cars for the lulz or using the cars to commit more serious crimes.
I know there are plans to fix some of these issues and I hope our local government can stop arguing about how to do it and start getting stuff done.
And I'm not in one of those supposedly-hellhole liberal cities that people claim have legalized all crime or whatever. Direct and second-hand experience with this stuff dates back to the 80s, for me. Zero times have I known the cops to help when a crime's been committed, beyond issuing a report for insurance (and sometimes charging money for that "service") and possibly snooping around to see if they can charge the person reporting the crime with something (hey, they're already right there, so that's a much easier arrest to make!)
The conversations with both parties amounted to less than 30 seconds, each.
Honestly if there's no injury, the police aren't going to care too much about damage to your car. They figure you're insured, so you'll be taken care of.
In most cities they have bigger fish to fry and a car accident with no injuries is just not that important. I don't think they're entirely wrong.
Contacted the police, took them about an hour to respond, and the officer gave me his email so I could send him the video. It was hard to make out but you could definitely see the object leave the truck, and a few seconds later appearing in my view, and me swerving.
Contacted insurance, they arranged the repairs, and I was out the deductible. About a week later I got a call from the police saying they looked up the plate and lo and behold, it wasn't even registered to a white pickup truck, but a blue sedan, so the plate was either stolen or swapped from another vehicle, at which point there really was no recourse.
Long story short, even if you have a dash cam, sometimes you're SOL. I _did_ use that as an excuse to upgrade my dash cam to one with better quality and night vision, but yeah, shit happens, and if nobody got hurt sometimes you gotta just accept it.
Assuming you have fault based accidents and can sue for the full cost, again the guys a deadbeat. I don't think this is the money saving idea that it seems. I'm not sure what you're hoping to accomplish, honestly.
Most dashcams can track speed too. When I was shopping for a dashcam, many of the reviews/comments said that the first thing they do when configuring their new dashcam is turn off the speed caption (sure it can still be calculated from the visuals if needed, but that's a lot more work). Last thing you want when you're using dashcam video to show someone else was at fault in an accident is their insurer to say that you were 2mph over the speed limit and therefore partially liable.
