Recently, the Senate Law & Justice Committee approved a bill, backed by Sen. Anthony Williams, D-Philadelphia, calling for the creation of an alert system to notify auto repair shops to watch for vehicles involved in hit-and-run crashes that involve serious injury or death within a limited time period after the incident occurs. The bill is now in a position to be considered by the full Senate.
“Repair shops will be put on notice that if someone comes within a certain period of time with damages to their car that were alerted by the state police,…that information would be advanced to the state police and then they would investigate those cars,” Williams said.
In 2016, a hit-and-run crash took the life of Jayanna Powell, an 8-year-old walking home from school. This incident lead to her family asking Williams to introduce this bill.
The alerts received by shops will be called "Jay alerts" in tribute to Jayanna. These will contain a description of the vehicle that fled the scene and be given to auto shops, which would be required to register with PennDOT. Failing to report a vehicle matching the alert could result in the shop being charged with a third-degree misdemeanor.
This system could be incredibly helpful to police in cases similar to Jayanna's where the driver who hit her had an accomplice take his vehicle to a repair shop 20 miles away from Philadelphia to evade being caught.
“I’ve seen it in my last law enforcement career where someone gets involved in an illegal hit and run and they try to go to a body shop and do a quick cash deal,” said Mike Regan, Law & Justice Committee Chairman R-Cumberland/York counties. “This kind of holds those body shops to account and I think ultimately will be a very good thing for our law enforcement community.”
