Uninjured Victim Driving Away from the Accident

[m1234]

My question involves a traffic accident in the State of: California

My girlfriend was driving and we were pulling out of an apartment complex driveway. There were a lot of cars parked along the road and the light nearby was red so she pulled out, and at that same moment an SUV was coming fast around the corner blocked from view by the parked cars. They ended up hitting the back of our car as she tried to get out of the way and they braked. We both pulled over and made sure they were all right and as we were going back to our car to get info to exchange they just drove away without saying a word. Now it's our fault, but it just seemed strange at the time. I have the license plate number just in case, wrote it from memory after watching them drive away.

I'm wondering what could potentially happen in this case. If I recall, it's technically illegal to drive away without exchanging insurance information? Now obviously accidents happen all the time and people decide to settle privately so they aren't exchanging information, but if this is true does that mean he can still come back after her since he left? I don't mean to profile, but since I've never seen the victim leave the scene (was very strange), a few hours later it occurred to me that maybe they were illegals and that's why they left without wanting to take it any further. If so I don't want to make any trouble for them, live and let live, but I just want to know what my girlfriend should expect as possible scenarios.

Thanks!

 

[djs]

From the way you described it, I assume you realize the accident is your girlfriends fault, since she pulled out of a driveway into oncoming traffic.

Its good to hear that no one was hurt.

To protect yourself (your girlfriend actually), she should file a police report if there is damage to the vehicles (or someone got hurt). This is simply done online nowadays with the local police department. Not a big deal, they just track this stuff.

You didn't say how much damage was done to the cars, if any thing significant. If not, I wouldn't worry about it much. If there is damage, file a claim with your insurer.

Dan

 

[m1234]

Yep, I wrote "our fault" meant her fault since she was driving.

There's hardly any visible damage to her car, but there may be something wrong with the axle.

We didn't really get a chance to look at their car since they drove straight away.