Danged if you Do danged if you don't

One any article involving accidents we usually get these kind of responses when a ticket is not issued;

Carpenter
My son got a ticket for cutting in front of someone, but the last
couple of days, people have caused accidents and are not issued tickets?? Even
after the officer said they were in the wrong???!!!
Go figure. These
officers must be directed from the higher ups, to write tickets or not, under
certain situations..
Wish I had that luck last year....

cobraden
If a motorist is clearly at fault for causing an accident why does
this town's PD not issue a citation? Is there something the public should know
about this under-handed practice so that they can plan their accidents
accordingly? Dripping with contempt.

Concerning issuing or not issuing tickets. This is an area of officer discretion. I asked an officer why he would give a ticket in one instance and not another. This is what he stated to me.

In general officers do not ticket the "at fault" vehicle of an accident because of two reasons. 1) The accident is often punishment itself, and 2) The officer often has not actually WITNESSED the accident.

Yes they can determine at fault via traffic investigation but they still would have to testify to the ticket in court to what they themselves did not witness.

Now why then would an officer write a ticket? To the officer I questioned, it has to do with HOW the accident occured. If it was a simple mistake, Then no ticket, the accident is bad enough. If it was due to sheer uncaring negligence or reckless endangerment, then the "at fault" gets a ticket in addition to the accident.

As an illustrative example:
If you did not see that stop sign until the last second because of an inadvertent distraction and hit another car... No ticket but you are "At Fault"

But if you were driving recklessly and weaving in and out of traffic and blowing through several stop signs and lights and then hit a car.. Not only are you "At fault" but you are also getting the ticket.

cobraden's comment is typical of the local cop-haters we have here. Had the officer involved issued a ticket, cobraden would have been complaining about officers being "revenooers" out to make money by writing tickets.