Licensing, insurance and the law
You back into a parked car and cannot find its owner. What must you do?
- Leave a securely attached note with your name, phone number and address, and report it to law enforcement. Correct answer
- Leave a note with your phone number; a police report is needed only if someone is hurt.
- Leave nothing at the scene and report the collision to DMV within 10 days.
Why
If your car strikes or rolls into a parked vehicle or other property, the first step is looking for the owner. If you cannot, the note has to carry three things, your name, phone number and address, and it has to be fastened securely to the vehicle or property. Then you report the collision to law enforcement. A phone number alone falls short, and the police report is part of the rule even when nobody is hurt. The DMV report within 10 days is a separate duty for collisions with more than $1,000 in property damage or anyone injured or killed, and it never replaces the note. Leaving the scene without stopping is what the handbook calls a hit-and-run.
Where this comes from
California Driver's Handbook, June 2025 edition. The correct answer is Leave a securely attached note with your name, phone number and address, and report it to law enforcement.
The rule behind this one
License, points and insurance in California goes through the whole topic, with the page of the California Driver's Handbook behind every rule.
More on licensing, insurance and the law
- After a traffic stop, an officer gives you a Notice of Priority Reexamination of Driver with the top box checked. How long do you have to contact DMV before your driving privilege is suspended automatically?
- You are 60 and have completed the Mature Driver Improvement Program. How long is your certificate valid, and how do you renew it?
- Within any 12-month period, what is the lowest point total at which DMV may consider you a negligent driver and suspend your driving privilege?
- You are 17, got your provisional license eight months ago, and want to drive your 16-year-old friend home at 6 p.m. Is that allowed?