Officials Call for Statewide Hit-and-Run Alert System

Saying California is experiencing an epidemic of hit-and-runs, city and state officials announced a joint effort today to push for a statewide alert system that would help track down motorists who flee crash scenes.

The proposed "yellow alert" system -- similar to an Amber Alert -- would display license plate and vehicle information of suspects on digital highway boards soon after a serious or fatal hit-and-run occurs.

AB 47, authored by Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Burbank, calls for the creation of such a system. Another pending Gatto bill, AB 1532, would increase penalties to include stripping offenders of their driver's licenses.

"In all parts of California it has gotten to the point where not a single weekend goes by without all of us seeing on the news another hit-and-run tragedy," Gatto said at a Los Angeles City Hall news conference. "Most people believe that one of the worst things a human can do to another human is leave someone on the side of the road to die. It's time our laws should reflect our values."

City Councilman Mitch Englander said a hit-and-run is a "heinous crime" and "cowardly" act, and said they have reached "biblical proportions" in Los Angeles. He said he has asked the police department to set up a local alert program using existing technology such as an upgraded camera system and Nixle, the police department's email and phone alert system.

But he said the city does not have access to the digital freeway signs that are used in Amber Alerts. He noted that a localized LAPD alert system could only be instituted on a voluntary basis, since the public must opt in to receive the police department's alerts.

Hit-and-run survivor Damian Kevitt, who joined the officials to lend his support to Gatto's bills, said he was riding his bike with his wife in Griffith Park last year when he was struck by a minivan and dragged nearly a quarter of a mile.

"I'm obviously lucky to have just lost my leg. I should have lost my life," he said.

In addition to the enforcement and legislative efforts, the conversation around hit-and-runs should be steered "back to humanity," in which drivers start to "understand they are responsible for their own and other people's lives," he said.

Since his encounter with the hit-and-run driver, Kevitt has started a campaign called Finish the Ride to raise awareness about street safety.

The City Council adopted a resolution in May urging state lawmakers to set up a system to issue statewide hit-and-run alerts. More than 100 fatal or severe hit-and-run crashes occur each year in Los Angeles, based on statistics compiled since 2007, according to Englander, the resolution's author.

A similar system enacted in Denver in 2012 called the Medina Alert has issued at least 17 alerts, leading to 13 cases being solved, city officials said.

--City News Service