Semi-truck trailer plate traceable?

[madbikes]

I heard two different answers about this. To make the long story short, a semi-truck decides to back into me in traffic.

Can you trace the driver by just the trailer plate? Some people tell me it's not required to document which trailer goes to which truck, some say you can find out the owner of the trailer at most. The only thing I have is the trailer license plate, but not the DOT number or the actual license plate of the truck. I was unable to stop the truck driver despite everyone is in traffic.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Grownman]

I heard two different answers about this. To make the long story short, a semi-truck decides to back into me in traffic.

Can you trace the driver by just the trailer plate? Some people tell me it's not required to document which trailer goes to which truck, some say you can find out the owner of the trailer at most. The only thing I have is the trailer license plate, but not the DOT number or the actual license plate of the truck. I was unable to stop the truck driver despite everyone is in traffic.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

I would think the dispatcher or whomever organizes the trailers would keep track of which trailer goes where. Time, Date + plate should be enough to trace I'd assume.

 

[Uberryan]

I would think the dispatcher or whomever organizes the trailers would keep track of which trailer goes where. Time, Date + plate should be enough to trace I'd assume.

This, and why isn't your cell phone in your hand to call the cops?

I had a similar encounter with a bunch of idiot road workers tonight. They're doing work in a busy roadway, and have been for weeks, maybe even months. It's choked down to two lanes from a threelane for both directions (6 lane road in total), and this sign truck pulls out in front of me, and blocks both lanes, drive 10mph in a 40mph. It looked like he was fucking with me intentionally, and I flashed my brights, and laid on the horn.

He pulls to the side, and I pull up next to him and give him the business. I ask for his supervisor's number and low and behold the super speeds up to the other side of my car and states that he's him. I give him the scenario, and end up dealing with bullshit from both occupants of either car, as well as a few fingers and a few physical violence threats. Fortunately enough for me, a cop had been behind me the entire time, and flagged both construction crew vehicles to pull over to the side, via megaphone and search light.

I was going to follow suit but only got the "Driver proceed on" when I went to stop. I hung a U-turn to check the action, and he had both drivers of either vehicle out, and was checking them over, flashlight and clip board in hand. It appeared he saw everything that occurred including the near accident this idiot had almost caused. Hopefully he gave them a whole stack of paper work, and some legal bullshit about their misdeeds.

Nevertheless, you need to report that as a hit and run to police, and hopefully you have a witness. Any pics of the damage?

 

[madbikes]

The damage is not extensive enough that I can keep driving (was on my way back home from a trip), but it did moved my car backwards. I did file a report immediately to highway patrol, but I don't understand why they asked me to go back one exit when they should have asked me to try obtaining the DOT/license plate number first. The sad thing is nobody is with me in the car.

 

[Gunkata]

the trailer can be owned by someone other than the truck, but you can still get the info from it/the police and go from there. If the company with the trailer is found, they would know who is pulling their trailer at the time.

 

[nouse4aname]

I had an incident with one years ago and thought the driver had given me fake contact info so was working with the highway patrol to track them down. They told me the trailer plate was useless, they just get swapped around all over the place with little to no paper trail. Basically not worth the investigation time if it's not a murder suspect or some such.

Happily turned out the driver had just transposed a number and got things taken care of though.