Sgt. Wood: We Don’t Always Write Citations

re: crash involving two Ironman competitors here

I talked to the officer who wrote the report this morning. He read the newspaper account and thought the reporter did a good job of telling the story. He was surprised by the “story comments” in the CDA Press which were pretty negative. He said it appeared to him that people felt he was catering to the rich. He has no idea where that mind set comes from. He said the two bicyclist are just regular people like you and me. To answer your question there is not set policy on whether an officer writes a ticket or not. Officers are trained and entrusted to use their best judgement while responding to any incident. He looked at the totality of the situation and determined a report would suffice. The police report is public information and available to who ever would like to look at it. Officers are not required to write a ticket at every accident scene. Citations are a tool used by law enforcement to curb or prevent future behavior such as speeding, fail to stop etc. In this case the two people involved went to the hospital with injuries ( I am told they will never likely be able to perform Ironman again),it cost them thousands of dollars in the loss of their bikes, and the event they trained for for a year they were not able to compete in. It is not likely they will repeat the same behavior again. The $48.00 citation does not have any bearing on whether they will have to compensate the driver of the vehicle. The accident was clearly their fault and they will need to work through the expense of it with their insurance companies. I do not think anyone wants a police department that writes a citation everytime someone “breaks the law”. Many citizens have been the recipient of a warning which leads people to change their behavior.

Sgt. Christie Wood
CPD Blue