We know a couple things about the guy who hit two cyclists back-to-back Tuesday morning near the Rose Quarter: He was driving a silver WRX Subaru, he had a temporary plate in his window but no rear plate, and his car had a Monster energy drink sticker on it. We don’t know his license plate number, we don’t know his name.
- Keep an eye out for a car like this—but with more Monster.
So how likely is it that the police can track down the guy with just a description of his car? Well, it’s not looking good. Portland police spokesman Pete Simpson explains that the police can search the DMV database for cars, but not knowing the year of the car’s make means the best search they could do would bring up every single Subaru in the state. The DMV doesn’t track colors of cars, either.
Trying to find a specific Subaru in the state of Oregon? Good luck. It’s like a needle in a haystack. A better resource could be searching a police database of cars that have been written citations in the past couple years, but so far there have been no major leads in this case.
So instead of just being able to dig up info about the Subaru WRX based on its description, the police rely mainly on tips. The problem with that is it takes a day for traffic tips to be processed through the police system, so if you happen to spot the offending car speeding down I-5, by the time the police hear about it, the suspect will be long gone. Police pin their hopes on someone spotting the car and recording its license number or figuring out where it’s usually parked. “The license plate is going to be the key, or anything identifying where the vehicle lives,” says Simpson.
In other news, the North American Subaru Owners Club is hot on the case! I wound up reading through their online forum discussing the news last night, and it was a refreshing conversation about a car-bike crash that breaks down the whole bikes vs. cars trope.
Isn’t there a way to search based on the VIN? The WRX should have a specific code in the VIN to identify it as such. From Wikipedia: “Another way to determine the version of a WRX was to look at the chassis code. All WRX sold between 1992 and 2000 have the beginning chassis code of GC8 sedan or GF8 wagon; this is followed by a letter from A to G.”
Also, Subaru didn’t begin selling the WRX in the US until 2002, so that should narrow it down.
Or, is the DMV database really that crappy?
What about contacting local (25-50 mile radius) Subaru dealerships and asking them for a list of all people who have purchased silver WRXs in the past 5 years? Sure, that might provide some false leads since the guy might have bought it new, but it would be a lead.
This doesn’t seem that hard. Time consuming? Yeah. Hard? No. I get the sense the cops are like “oh, fuck, that sounds like a TON of work to arrest a guy for hit-and-run when he’ll just end up pleading down to reckless driving and getting 60 days probation.”
Subaru doesn’t code for color in their VINs, which would have helped: http://www.cars101.com/subaru/vin.html
And the witness reports quoted in the original Oregonian article just said that it MAY have had a temporary plate, unfortunately.
What about sales of a new headlight, since it broke one in the second collision? I’m sure there are hundreds of *retail* stores to buy one in Portland, but the stores will probably have to special-order it from just one or two distributors, right?
And – traffic cameras, in the area? Anything captured on film?
The commenters on that NASIOC forum seem pretty convinced that it’s a 2002 based on the description of the foglight left at the scene. Of course, the police now have that foglight and it’s unfortunate that THEY haven’t managed to discern a year from it yet.
I am fucking stunned that for all the waits, expense, and ridiculous hoops DMV makes us jump, they don’t record something as basic as color.
Our tax dollars at work.
and why are people yammering about the VIN? umm… peeps?… unless you have the car, reading the VIN is…problematic, OK?
“What about contacting local (25-50 mile radius) Subaru dealerships and asking them for a list of all people who have purchased silver WRXs in the past 5 years? Sure, that might provide some false leads since the guy might have bought it new, but it would be a lead. “
Gee, I don’t know, because they’d be fucking sued off their asses x20,000 for doing so?
@Rabblevox – We already know the make, year, model and color. If we could sort the DMV records by color, that might give us a small enough list of registered cars for police to investigate.
Our silly DMV records don’t have a field for ‘color’ but they DO include the VIN number. So if the VIN number itself specified color, that would be a way around the limitations of our DMV records. Follow all that? Should I make a chart?
You know how many Silver WRX’s there are in this town? I have one, and I see doppelgangers everywhere. This will be tough. Note: I have never hit any bikes. Please do not come after me and my car.