Originally Posted by
mconlonx
1) She's kinda pretty. Bet that played into how things worked out with the cop during the first stop.
2) She was not intoxicated. Which is what cops are really looking for during late-night weekend stops.
3) She was ticketed for speeding and driving w/o a license and released when a licensed driver showed up, per department SOP.
-however-
4) 29 mph over the speed limit is 1mph below automatic arrest speed (30mph, misdemeanor), and although I have absolutely no shred of evidence to back it up, I'd be willing to bet she was going faster and should have been arrested, but the cop used his discretion to tag her for the lesser speed (moving violation/civil infraction).
No one's talking about it locally -- many focus on the unlicensed driver aspect of the whole deal -- but the speeding charge should very much be investigated, as that's the one where I see the most chance of a cop having screwed up a discretion call will lethal results.
Again, in the UK the licensed owner of the car would have found that s/he would have been (probably) arrested on the grounds of allowing an unqualified driver to use his/her car. That would probably have made them extremely reluctant to lend it to this foolish / reckless /incompetent girl again, even if the police had only issued a caution* for doing so - with a stern warning of the probable consequences of doing so again.
Whatever would have hapened, it is possible / likely / probable that this terrible tragedy would have been avoided.
*A caution results in a criminal record in the UK