If that fine doesn’t exceed the replacement cost of his car then he’ll still come out ahead.
Glad this incident didn’t end in some sort of tragedy. When I was living in Pasadena CA 9 years ago some guy got mugged by a teenager a couple blocks away from me. In order to get his 911 call taken seriously he lied and said he was robbed at gunpoint. So of course when the cops tracked down the unarmed, black teenager they shot him dead. The cops didn’t face any consequences (of course) but the guy who filed the false police report was initially being charged with manslaughter before pleading guilty to a lesser charge.
