Ask Mr. Answer Person: Questions about being ticketed for "failure to maintain control."

Beth e-mails Mr. Answer Person: I have seen now twice that people have been ticketed for failure to maintain control of their vehicle when they have been in an accident. The roads had black ice on them and there would have been no way to "control" their vehicle. Why are they ticketed? It seems way different to me than if they were being careless with their driving."
 
Mr. Answer Person replies: Each and every police officer and sheriff's
deputy makes their own judgment call about whether to issue a traffic ticket following an accident.  Mr. Answer Person has more frequently seen the opposite situation of the one you describe--that someone pulls out into traffic from a stop sign and strikes a passing car or truck, but doesn't get ticketed.
 
Mr. Answer Person understands your frustration with the situation--because he has also been frustrated.  But any system that relies on human judgment to determine whether a traffic ticket is issued is going to be messy, almost by definition.  That's probably no comfort to the two people who got thetickets, but that's the way it works in an imperfect world!