Crash Question

There's a tendency for everyone to second guess or Monday morning quarterback a tragic event. Most times, it's an effort to understand why something happened or figure out who's to blame. We suppose it's natural, but can be construed as inappropriate so close to the event. We deleted a few of those comments in the original post yesterday because we stated that it was for prayers and remembrances only.

But reviewing the comments, one stood out. And an e-mail last night reinforced our disquiet. The comment stated the following:

• [from a cop on traffic control at the scene] Would you believe that I was waved down by a City snowplow driver on the inner drive and he stated that they were under orders...NOT to salt Lakeshore Drive!
  
  The City Snowplow Driver seemed sincere and pissed off that a needless accident had to happen because of his direct orders.

The e-mail was a bit more damning:

• A friend who monitored the radio transmission this morning stated that someone from streets n san broadcasted the following...No More Salt On Lake Shore Drive"! That was before the Sgt Crashed. Can someone pull the tapes for that Sgt's family! I figured your the best source of info relay

We can only assume the radio transmission was over the Streets and San radio net and we have no idea if their stuff is recorded and saved like ours and what sort of legal compunctions they might be under to preserve the tapes.

We would really really hate to think that some bureaucrat pinching pennies on salt distribution during what was supposed to be a pretty heavy winter storm may have contributed in some fashion to the death of one of our own.