[mikejb]

Did Google pay off the Camry driver? If I was pushed into an accident by a car with company decals and a sensor suite on top [1], I'd definitely include this when reporting the accident. It's an incredible story, and I'm not sure whether I say that in it's literal or figurative meaning. (Note that the author of the article is Charles Duhigg, a Pulitzer-price winning journalist - so it's not just a story posted by some dude on his blog).

[1] https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cdgQpa1pUUE/maxresdefault.jpg (This is the type of cars they had in 2012).

[dragonwriter]

> Did Google pay off the Camry driver?

The Camry driver was either absolutely or co-equally required to yield (TIL that despite the DMV Driver Handbook saying the former about freeway merges, there's signficant debate over whether that or equal responsibility is a correct interpretation of the Vehicle Code.)

> Note that the author of the article is Charles Duhigg, a Pulitzer-price winning journalist

No, it's Nicole Karlis, a Salon staff writer on tech, health, and gender politics who has not won a Pulitzer.

Now, the article is a sensationalized rehash of an incident from of a New Yorker article by Charles Duhigg, but he is not the author of the article directly at issue.

[oldgradstudent]

What I understood from the article is that they left the scene without reporting it.

There was another incident they never reported. The other driver was undocumented and he also preferred not to report.

[dragonwriter]

> The other driver was undocumented

“unlicensed”, per the article. “undocumented” in US parlance, referring to an individual, usually refers to immigration status; the article only indicates this driver had no driver's license.

[oldgradstudent]

You're right, it was 'unlicensed' rather than 'undocumented'.

[mikejb]

> The other driver was undocumented and he also preferred not to report.

I don't live in the US, so I don't know - but is that common? To me, it sounds like a significant accident, and I fail to understand why it wouldn't be reported.

[stevenwoo]

The undocumented person may have not had insurance which would be one set of problems, or might have thought they would be at fault to some degree - being in an accident with someone injured would have involved police - both circumstances leading to contact with authorities could have led to deportation. It is not common to not have insurance but even in the case of people here legally, those without insurance commonly run from accidents because of the penalties for not having insurance. There is also the case of people with insurance but having a lot of driving penalty points (for speeding/running stop signs or lights) running or attempting to pay cash to avoid involving insurance because they have very expensive insurance due to driving history and do not want to get forced into an even higher insurance bracket.

[mikejb]

That makes a lot of sense, thanks for the explanation!

[sgc]

The other driver was living in the US illegally, so he cut his losses to avoid the risk of deportation.

[dragonwriter]

> The other driver was living in the US illegally

The article only says he was unlicensed; the upthread poster converted that to “undocumented”.

[sgc]

Sorry for perpetuating falsehood.

Similar issue of legal repercussions, but in the larger context of the current political environment, worlds apart.