Loophole benefitting those who flee on foot from a hit-and-run crash is set to close

CEDAR RAPIDS - Who would have known that there was an upside to fleeing the scene of a hit-and-run crash on foot rather than in your vehicle?

Turns out, the city's tough-as-nails, vehicle-seizure ordinance, which also provides for a hefty $500 civil impoundment fee for matters as routine as driving without insurance, does not apply to a culprit who flees the scene of a personal-injury or property-damage crash on foot. It applies only if you flee in the vehicle.

Tuesday evening, the City Council is slated to close the loophole.

Police Sgt. Joe Clark on Tuesday said local attorney Jim Piersall, a hearing officer who presides over appeals of the city's seizure and impoundment ordinance, has set aside the impoundment fee on one occasion for a hit-and-run driver who left the vehicle behind.

Piersall on Tuesday said the driver in question was “kind of surprised, too,” when Piersall pointed out that the city's impoundment ordinance specifically said the hit-and-run driver had to drive the vehicle from the crash scene for the city to impose the impoundment fee.

Clark noted that state and city law considers it a hit-and-run crime no matter how the suspect flees, and so now the City Council will change the seizure-and-impoundment language to reflect that, Clark said. He said “a couple” of cases benefitted from the loose language in need of change.

Sufficiently stiff is the city's $500 civil impoundment fee that more than 50 percent of drivers who had their vehicles seized in the first four months of the program did not claim them. About a third of drivers did not claim vehicles in the past before the impoundment fee was put in place last fall.