daoswald

I was rear-ended by the LAPD bomb unit on a freeway on-ramp when the car in front of the car in front of me stopped. I didn't hit anything, was just rear ended by the LAPD heavy truck. It totaled my car. It didn't take long to have a whole slew of LAPD and CHP vehicles on the scene to investigate. The officer who hit me was really dismayed at what he had done, and I was not cited, and there was no implication that I was at fault. The LAPD truck was just following too closely, and not paying attention down the road what was going on.

It was a pretty clear case of liability. Yet my insurance company never recovered a cent from the city. They told me that the effort to recover a claim, which almost certainly would have gone to litigation because of how unresponsive the city is to such things, would be more expensive than just paying out the claim to me and writing it off.

If my deep-pockets insurance company couldn't recover from LAPD with a clear case, it's hard to imagine a cyclist hitting a pothole could recover anything from the city.