States Launch Effort to Catch Hit-and-Run Drivers

A law created recently in California, which goes into effect in January 2023, creates a Yellow Alert system for fatal hit-and-run crashes, similar to an Amber Alert for abducted children and could serve as an example for other states hoping to make it easier for police to track down hit-and-run drivers, reports Pew Stateline.

If police can get a complete or partial license plate number and description of the vehicle, it can be flashed on highway message signs in the area and sent to the media to disseminate.

“This is just a recurring tragedy. One of the difficulties is when they flee, often it takes a long time to locate the individual — or they never do,” said California Republican Assembly Member Jim Patterson, who authoried the bill.

Patterson himself lost a friend who was the victim of a hit-and-run while bicycling.

Hit-and-run crash fatalities have been climbing in the United States, jumping from 2,037 in 2019 to 2,564 in 2020, a 26 percent increase, according to the most recent data available from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Many of the victims aren’t riding in cars and trucks. Twenty-four percent of all pedestrian fatalities in 2020 involved hit-and-run crashes, as did 22 perrcent of all bicyclist fatalities.

At least two other states — Colorado and Maryland — use similar alert systems for hit-and-run crashes.

 Investigating hit-and-runs are among ther most difficult challenges for law enforcement.

Even if investigators do find the car involved, they have to prove who was driving it at the time of the crash, said Ron Menchey, a Maryland State Police first sergeant.

Technology such as cellphones, vehicle dashcams, business surveillance video and DNA has helped police solve hit-and-run crimes, according to Menchey.

“But even those we do solve, we never get the real story,” he said. “We don’t know why they did it.”

Sometimes, it’s because a driver is impaired or has a license suspension, Menchey said, but a lot of it boils down human psychology.

“It’s people’s lack of caring,” he said. “It’s a fight or flight.”

However, the effectiveness of the effort remains to be seen.

For example, a Maryland State Police unit that investigates fatal hit-and-runs, and has about a 60 percent success rate in solving the crimes, says that there have been only five Yellow Alerts activated in the state so far and all have been from their own agency.

California’s new law requires that the state highway patrol track the number of Yellow Alert requests it gets from law enforcement agencies throughout the state and submit a report to the legislature by 2026 about the efficacy, advantages and disadvantages of the system.