I'm not sure what you want to happen here. An arrest is a (temporary) suspension of a person's civil liberties. There has to be a legitimate reason under the laws of the jurisdiction to do it. I don't know the law in England, but in the USA, if the investigating officer does not have evidence for a crime (the act, and "mens rea") or you aren't deemed a potential flight risk because you have some relation as a person of interest to someone who does in an ongoing investigation, you aren't arrested. You can be detained (which is technically what happened here - she was not free to run away from the officer while being asked the questions). She cooperated, and the questions were answered to the officer's satisfaction. Once his superiors read the report, if they find his work on scene to have been sloppy and her actions or answers suspect, they can go back and arrest her if there's cause.

I used the term detained intentionally, and then specified that arrest wouldn’t be unreasonable if required by circumstances of the investigation.

Cars are sacred in the United States. Even if you're drunk you might only get 10 days in jail: https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170126/old-town/ryne-san-h...

The police are not supposed to be able to arrest a person they don't think are guilty. The police could probably lie about it and fake probable cause, but they aren't supposed to.

That's exactly what I meant. maybe I'm not familiar enough with what "arrest" entails, but at least keeping them at the station to make sure she's ok or something.

To clarify my comment, I wasn't talking about finding a way to point fingers at her or something. but really, just sending her on her way, driving the car she just used to kill a child with, is irresponsible.

This is what I took your comment to mean as well. To me, watching the responses to your comment illustrate why it is that it’s so hard for anything to change with respect to traffic safety.

I mean, we have here a story with a dead child and story of a woman who caused the death. On the strength of the emotional narrative presented in this story, people here have largely decided that it’s not even worth asking questions, maybe dotting an i or crossing a t or two.

I wouldn’t expect the officer to knock her head shoving her into the back of a squad car, or to keep her waiting in an interview room until she’s good and ready to crack. But then again, I generally expect humane, dignified treatment of people that police interact with.

Consider that she was detained for a little bit by the rookie police officer while they concluded their investigation. That seems all that was necessary since this was an accident. Believe it or not, it's not actually necessary to arrest and jail someone every time there is an accident like this.