Over the weekend, a driver behind the wheel of a rented Tesla launched over a hill in the Echo Park neighbourhood of Los Angeles before landing on other vehicles at the end of the street. One of those vehicles was allegedly owned by Jordan Hook, whose Subaru Forester was destroyed in the process. And to recoup his losses, Hook has started a GoFundMe.
“Hi, I’m Jordan, a local musician here in LA. Last night, I woke up to the sound of a jolting crash outside my window a little after midnight,” Hook wrote on his GoFundMe. “I came out to see a destroyed Tesla rammed into the back of my Subaru. People were scrambling out of the crashed Tesla, grabbing their phones and cat (which apparently was in the car when it jumped) and getting into other Teslas that were all at this point clogging up the street. Then they just took off.”
Hook embedded Alex Choi’s video that showed exactly what happened from multiple different camera angles — a video that was removed from Hook’s GoFundMe as per a copyright claim from Choi himself.
Though the people in Choi’s video decided that Hook’s Forester only sustained some damage to the rear bumper, Hook tells a different story:
Although this guy claimsin his video that my car didn’t sustain major damage, this isn’t true. The back is only banged up on the bumper. But my wheels were turned in towards the curb, and when the Tesla hit my car it jumped the curb, wrenching the wheels under and twisting them up so that it is now un-driveable.
I just put almost $US5,000 ($6,941) into this car getting a new motor put in last month which kind of wiped out my savings. Luckily my neighbours Johnny and Cliff suggested that we rally Baxer Street and make a Go-Fund Me as a way to support me and show everyone that jumping a car (with a cat inside) on a neighbourhood street in the middle of the night just for likes and followers is NOT COOL.
Some folks on social media are already asking why Hook went to GoFundMe instead of to his insurance company to report a hit-and-run — a very valid question. Car insurance claims, though, can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to sort out, and there’s no guarantee Hook will be compensated for the entire vehicle at the end of the process. It also sounds like the police haven’t been very helpful in Hook’s case, which can further slow the claim process. If you need a vehicle ASAP, you might be more inclined to set up a GoFundMe than wait for insurance to take care of things.