You bring up good points, and it could be done if the criminal and civil aspects of a crash sequence were approached differently than is the current standard practice.

All that said, the issuance of a citation brings the issue of the traffic violation to a criminal court of law, where an individual can have a right to a fair trial over the violation. They can be found guilty or innocent on that violation. If found guilty, that violation is recorded and has undergone the criminal court process. If an officer merely documents a violation in a report, that violation has not undergone due process nor the court procedure on the criminal side, and could always be retracted or challenged later on, including prior to (or in) the proceeding civil litigation of the crash. Many people have changed their stories very drastically a few days or weeks after the crashes are investigated. Now, fault and contributing factors could always be determined in civil court, at least as how it pertains to the claim, but when clear probable cause is observed that indicates a violation, the standard process (for all traffic violations and citations) to try the violation in criminal court, and the civil elements of the crash to civil court proceedings.

The citation results in a firm guilty or not guilty criminal determination on the criminal violation itself at the end of the criminal court process, which is much different than an officer simply noting or documenting something without the court process of a citation. Without this step, it would push all elements to civil court and skip the criminal violation entirely.

As I mentioned in my previous post, in some cases it can be critical that a citation was issued and upheld in court, especially in the civil suits and depositions that follow in accident cases. The determination of violation or non-violation is then on the court, instead of the officer. Same principle as a warrant vs warrantless search - one is an officer's decision/determination, the other is a judge's decision/determination. It's also often important that the violation is tried to the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt, as the standard in civil court is simply preponderance of the evidence.

It would also bring into factor the officer's duty consistency - is their normal, duty consistent pattern to issue citations on traffic violations, such as speeding? (obviously with allowance for officer discretion) If the answer is yes, and they do issue citations routinely for traffic violations, why are they breaking duty consistency and not citing in crashes? The argument could be made that on a normal traffic citation, such as for speeding, no damage has occurred to any other parties at the time of citation. Yet, on a crash, damage has been done to another party, so why would the officer not cite the violator when their violation resulted in damage? Why would the officer be so inconsistent in the fact that they issue citations to violators not involved in crashes, yet not cite those whose violations resulted in damage? Duty consistency with policy and actions can often be a factor.


What you propose certainly could be done, it would just require pushing violations in accidents into civil court simply as contributing factors of a crash instead of criminal violations. The evaluation would be done on a civil standard and as part of the total event instead of as a violation of traffic code. And that is certainly done at times, but the common practice (and often policy) centers around enforcing the criminal violations when PC exists in the form of those citations.

You are also correct though, this often may vary by location and agency, and officers still have discretion on issuance of citations in many cases. I've typically seen the agencies that handle large scale crashes (routinely involving fatalities, serious injury, commercial vehicles) spend a lot more time in depositions and court proceedings than do others that handle largely property damage only or fender bender crashes. Large crashes are often highly, highly scrutinized and evaluated in court proceedings.