Police struggle to find drivers 'that don't exist'
Hit-and-run highlights rising issues of false car registration
By Carol Vaughn
Staff Writer
April 12, 2008

PARKSLEY -- Darryl Hopkins was asleep in a recliner in the living room of his Fisher Road home early this week when he was startled awake by a crash.

At first he thought the handgun he sleeps with had fallen to the floor. Then he realized the gun was still in his lap, and he was covered with glass shards from a broken windowpane in the nearby front door.

A framed picture of Jesus had been knocked from the wall next to the doorjamb and now laid behind a bookcase.

"It woke me up big time. I couldn't get myself together. I didn't know what happened," said the 65 year-old Air Force veteran and retired electrician, still shaken a day later.

Hopkins called 911. A couple of minutes later, he looked outside and saw the source of the impact -- a white 1995 Hyundai with Mississippi license plates was lying on its side near the front door, its headlights still shining toward the road.

Hopkins' front porch was demolished and the driver was already gone, leaving behind a wallet containing a Mississip-pi driver's license issued to Fidel Chavez Escalante.

The driver had not been found as of late this week, according to First Sgt. JP Koushel of the Virginia State Police, putting a spotlight on hit-and-run cases involving falsified vehicle registrations that seem to be increasing.

"We can't solve these (cases) because in Mississippi, this car is registered to a person who doesn't exist," Koushel said.

His department has complained to that state, as well as Tennessee and the FBI, but he said the problem now includes Virginia.

"All they want is proof of address," he said of changes in policy at the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles since 2005. Applicants for car registration and title do not have to prove their identity, he said.

"These cars are untraceable; they all come back to a fictitious person," Koushel said. "If you don't have to prove who you are, what's the use of registering and titling a car? If migrant workers can do it, criminals can do it."

A search of General District court records this week turned up three cases involving a person with the name on the license found in the car with a Parksley address -- one for speeding, one for not having a Virginia driver's license and one for no license. The man was found guilty in all three cases and paid fines ranging from $75 to $100.

In this most recent incident, the car apparently rounded a sharp curve just west of Hopkins' house and ran off the road into his yard, missing a utility pole by inches and leaving deep tire tracks in the lawn. It then flipped over and destroyed Hopkins' front porch before coming to rest against a picket fence.

Fisher Road
Cars leaving the road and crashing into things is apparently not an uncommon occurrence on Fisher Road, a short stretch near Parksley that connects two busy thoroughfares -- Parksley and Greenbush roads, both of which lead into town.

Tuesday's crash wasn't even the first time Hopkins' front yard has been invaded by an errant vehicle -- last year, a westbound car flipped and took out his lamppost, he said. A week or so later, he found a half-gallon jug of vodka nearby while cleaning up his yard.

"It's a zoo back here," said Hopkins, who grew up in the farmhouse next door to the bungalow where he now lives after retiring to the Shore in 1995. "This is a major corridor for drugs, alcohol and illegal immigrants."

There were 10 motor vehicle accidents reported on the 1 1/2-mile-long Fisher Road between 2000 and 2007, according to highway department statistics -- and a half-dozen more at the intersection where Fisher veers off from Parksley Road, which connects Parksley with Route 13.

Hopkins said neighbors across the street also recently had a car run into their yard, barely missing their house.

One car that hit a utility pole on the road had Mississippi license plates on the front and Tennessee on the rear, he said.

A half-century ago Fisher Road was rural with few houses, Hopkins said, but now it is a "major bypass for Parksley," as well as the location of a migrant labor camp that came in the 1970s and a new mobile home park. Besides the problem with car accidents, Hopkins said he sometimes hears gunfire in the night, and two years ago a building at the labor camp was set afire.

"It's going to be a big disaster back here," said Hopkins.

The accident has left Hopkins with a host of problems, including the trouble of rebuilding his porch and repairing other damage to his house.

Hopkins is a veteran who enjoys big-game hunting. He also is an experienced sailor who once survived being struck by lightning while boating on the York River. Still, he has been shaken by his close brush with disaster this week.

"I slept in my truck last night; I wouldn't even sleep in there," he said.


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