From a store across the street I witnessed an SUV backing into my Mazda Miata (both parallel parked...he probably couldn't see it back there). I was able to get his liscense plate as he drove away, called SC DMV and they wouldn't tell me who it was at first.... but the gal relented eventually and told me. But then I got to looking at the actual damage and figured it wasn't worth the trouble to fix and just let it go.
I guess my point is, DMV is not supposed to tell you these things but they might anyway via some sweet talk
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But speaking of just happening to witness your own car mishaps, when I was a freshman in college just happened to glance out the second floor of biology lab at the exact moment some jerks from my dorm hall taking the distributor cap off my car (most of my dorm mates were fanstastic folks, but these two were total jerks). So I run down there to confront them and they are astounded I just happened to catch them in the act, put it back and all is well.
Except thinking back on it later, what I should have done is
nothing......just go about the lab class as usual, go to car, put distributor cap back on and never mention it...... would have driven them crazy trying to figure out how what they did didn't work....LOL....
I guess the issue was, from the distance I couldn't tell for sure that was all they were going to do....they might have taken some plug cables with them for all I knew at the time.
(and yes, this was eons ago when you could not lock the "bonnet" and there were distributor caps
)