Despite a near dearth of evidence, the Bellevue Police are making strides in identifying the driver in last week’s hit-and-run collision that left a cyclist with life-threatening injuries thanks in part to social media.

A 51-year-old North Bend woman was found on the 3400 block of 118th Ave. SE with life-threatening injuries around 6 a.m. on March 23 after reportedly being hit by a vehicle that fled the scene. Police were unable to find any witnesses to the collision, and while there are traffic cameras further south on 118th Avenue, they were not in the right location to catch the driver.

“Although southbound 118th Avenue Southeast is a likely escape route, the cameras there don’t provide a four-way view. They were facing the wrong way,” said Bellevue Police spokesperson Seth Tyler.

The only clue police had in this case was a piece of broken headlight found at the scene, of which they quickly shared images.

Scores of citizens took the photos and ran to help identify the car by a single broken headlight found at the scene.

The original tweet and images of the headlight were retweeted around 50 times in the first 24 hours, and received many more responses. People responded with suggestions, images of their own headlights for comparison and more.

What little information was available was shared on Twitter, Facebook, and websites Reddit, Krime/Share and automobile news website Jalopnik. A single post on a Reddit board with close to 180,000 subscribers received more than 80 comments.

Police departments, including Bellevue’s, have used Jalopnik numerous times in the past to identify the makes and models of cars involved in armed robberies, hit-and-run collisions and potential murderers.

Initially, Jalopnik readers were credited with identifying the possible vehicle model — a 2013-2015 Honda Accord. However, upon further investigation at local car dealerships, slight discrepencies in the recovered headlights and Honda’s were discovered.

The police department is appreciative nevertheless.

“Although the photo of the Accord provided to us by the Jalopnik contributor was very close, when our investigators went to the Honda dealership to confirm, it was discovered that the headlights were in fact slightly different,” Tyler said.

When investigators went to Toyota, they were able to definitively confirm that the part was a drivers’ side headlight lens from a 2010-2015 Toyota Prius 3, according to police.

The Jalopnik hypothesis was still helpful, police said, because it gave them a starting point of a newer Japanese vehicle to work from.

Police investigation is ongoing, and they are still seeking information about the crash and/or the driver.

The victim’s family has requested privacy during her recovery.