Country Boy, I feel your pain! Thanks to the lawyers in America, it is what it is! An officer can not assign fault if there is no independent witness to document what happened in a case like this. If the accident occurs where evidence will support one driver over another, then obviously the officer can place fault and issue a citation. An example of this would be someone pulling out from a side street that had a stop sign, or someone crossing the center line where POI is in your lane of travel. Unfortunalety, an intersection with a traffic signal is the worst type of accident to assign fault w/o a witness because it becomes a "he said, she said" scenario. Without the officer being there, all he has is an accident scene.
As far as driving w/o a license - you are required by law to have your DL on your person. If his DL was valid and he did not have it on him, he is allowed to drive away after getting a ticket. If the driver was under suspension, that is a different story, but don't think that the officer did anything wrong by letting him drive away. If he issued him a summons for the DL issue, that is all he could do. With today's technology, we can run someone by name in our cars, get their DL information on the screen and send them on the way. Sucks, but that's the law.
In the end, your insurance company will take care of your vehicle, his will take care of that car, and you will be happy and content that nobody was hurt. if you are able to locate a witness, then you have hope, but chances are - nobody will come forward. Best of luck, not trying to ruin your day, just thought you deserved an explanation as it sounded like you were upset at the officer, but his hands are tied. SUCKS!
|