A man in Northern California has been dealing with the fallout of a hit-and-run crash since for months after a mail carrier hit his parked car and took off.
Brady Muir had been parking his Volkswagen Jetta on the street for a decade, received a call from his son one morning, according to San Francisco’s ABC 7:
It was not someone you’d expect to hit your car and then flee the scene. But that’s what happened, and months later, this family is still trying to recoup their loss.
Brady Muir of San Ramon got the urgent call from his son. “I just want you to know something’s wrong with the car — the back is all smashed,” the teen said. Their Volkswagen Jetta parked in front of the house was mysteriously damaged.
“I was hard on my kids. I was like, ‘OK, just tell me what you did,’” said Muir. His teenagers said they were not responsible. They’d gone to get burgers and returned safely. “Literally we went to In-N-Out, and then came home,” they said.
Apparently since the kids weren’t fessing up, Muir checked the house’s Ring cameras. And that’s when he saw it; a mail truck slowly rolled down the street with no driver. The mail carrier ran up and hopped in the truck, but as soon as he hopped in, it appeared that he hit the gas, slamming into the back of Muir Jetta hard enough that it actually moved the sedan forward a few feet.
Rather than get out to survey the damage or tell Muir what happened, the mailman backed up and drove off. Muir immediately called his local post office to file a claim over the accident but got months of the run around from USPS.
So Muir contacted the postmaster general’s office in Sacramento. They instructed him to take the Jetta to get two estimates for repairs “…and then we’ll get back to you.” Again, silence. He followed up and was then told that it would take them “six, nine months for us to get going on it.” That wasn’t going to work for Muir as he needed his car to get to work. Things got a bit worse after the car was inspected. While the damage appeared superficial, the impact actually bent the Jetta’s frame, resulting in a total loss. Worse yet, he was paying out of pocket for things like a rental car and his insurance deductible and he still hadn’t heard from the post office. When his insurance didn’t pay out enough to replace the car, he had to go with an older model. This was too much insult to add to his injury, so Muir reached out to his local ABC affiliate. USPS gave the news station the runaround as well:
7 On Your Side asked why the Postal Service never responded to his claim.
A spokesperson said it’s all because Muir never filed “standard form 95.” He can’t file a claim without it — which no one had mentioned to Muir. So Muir quickly filled out standard form 95. But that was back in July. As October ended, still no word.
ABC reached out to the USPS again. Finally, a spokesperson confirmed that Muir’s claim would be reviewed and a check would be sent to him promptly. “We sincerely apologize, and thank you for bringing this to our attention,” the spokesperson said to ABC 7. Now it seems as if Muir will finally be able to put this situation behind him. As for the mail carrier, he seemed to have skipped out on responsibility; USPS confirmed that the driver retired right immediately after the crash.
