An effort is underway in Sacramento to stem the rising incidents of hit-and-runs in the state and the dwindling chance for justice. As it stands, if you shoot or stab someone to death in California, your chances of being brought to justice are in the neighborhood of 60 percent. On the opposite side of that \u2013 if you run over them with your car and take off, the chance that justice will catch up with you drop to 20 percent. And, the situation can be further compounded should the victim lack adequate health insurance.<\/p>\n
Those numbers were completely unacceptable for one state lawmaker, Assemblyman Mike Gatto, a Democrat from Glendale. That\u2019s why he sponsored AB 8 (Assembly Bill 8). The Hit-and-Run \u201cYellow Alert\u201d\u00a0 bill, which just passed through the state Assembly, would give CHP officers and other law enforcement agencies an extra set of eyes to count on when they need to solve situations like these.<\/p>\n
It would take advantage of the state\u2019s existing highway network of electronic message boards and display a \u201cyellow alert\u201d with the details of a hit-and-run in a narrow area to try to\u00a0catch a suspect that\u2019s killed or caused great bodily injury to someone and just left them to die in the middle or side of the road. According to Assemblyman Gatto, the act itself is not only callous, but shows a fundamental disrespect for human life.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, because the information would just be in the narrow area where the accident occurred, it wouldn\u2019t go statewide nor send cell phones buzzing. The plan would be to trigger the alert only if a complete license plate number of the suspect vehicle, a partial plate and a car make, or the identity of the suspect is available.<\/p>\n
Ironically, while the bill is designed to help the CHP solve incidents like the recent hit-and-run death of a man on Marconi Avenue, the California Highway Patrol\u2019s<\/a> the only registered agency opposed to it \u2014 with Commissioner Joseph Farrow signing off on a letter sent to Gatto\u2019s office.<\/p>\n Farrow cites several concerns, including overwhelming the sign system already being used for AMBER and Silver alerts. He also believes the move could desensitize the public to the message boards and suggests that the \u201cyellow alert\u201d may not be necessary since it\u2019s anticipated that such crashes will decrease since so many of California\u2019s undocumented and formerly unlicensed drivers can now drive legally through AB 60<\/a>.<\/p>\n Gatto responded by saying the only priority should be to do whatever it takes to punish reckless behavior on the roads and went on to cite his own numbers, using the city of Denver, Colorado as proof of its effectiveness. The city tried something similar to Gatto\u2019s bill and the apprehension rate went up from 20 percent to 76 percent in just one year.<\/p>\n Now out of the house, AB 8 should make it to the senate public safety committee by July.<\/p>\n It\u2019s dangerous out there, whether you\u2019re riding in a car or walking across the street. Think safety first and don\u2019t take chances \u2013 especially when it comes to your health insurance in California. Make sure you have the right coverage at the best possible rates. Why not get a free California health insurance <\/a>quote today?<\/p>\n Are you in favor of the \u201cyellow alert\u201d to help curb the high number of hit-and-runs in the state? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An effort is underway in Sacramento to stem the rising incidents of hit-and-runs in the state and the dwindling chance for justice. As it stands, if you shoot or stab someone to death in California, your chances of being brought to justice are in the neighborhood of 60 percent. On the opposite side of that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3202,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[696],"tags":[326,346,347],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}