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It looks like it applies to the people actually involved to me. But it's NC so it's not going to be clear. It was the only thing I could find.

I just don't understand the mentality of someone who would drive off knowing a car is in the water like that.

Where I would stop, I can understand someone not stopping.

Check my link at the end of my #522. Written by a lawyer.

To make a joke and get flamed by all lawyers, maybe it was a lawyer that called.

NC does not require you to stop or render aid.

Think about it. How could you pass such a law?

Maybe the first person on the scene is a heart patient who is wheelchair bound.

You can think of 100 variations on that scenario.

Or look at it another way. There is a law that says you must stop. So you see a car with its front bumper against a tree. The door is half open. Legs hanging out the door. Obviously the poor fellow has collapsed while trying to get out of the car.

So you slide to a stop, rush madly over to help and find your self staring down the barrel of a .45. Wild imagination? No, something similar to this happens every now and then. The common unimaginative garden variety of this is the woman on the side of the road with a stalled vehicle. Only it turns out that she has a male accomplice behind the bushes.

Or a man and a woman fighting on the side of the road.

So you can't force anyone to stop, but you have to hope that people will use their brains. A car in the water is not going to be a threat to a person who stops. Of course, if you can't swim, you have a heart condition that cold water will trigger, you have dope in the car, you have just left your girlfriend's house and you wife will find it out because your job is on the other side of town and you have no business there.......

Even the cops tell you that your first duty is to look after your own safety first.

There is one thing that does bug me. I can not understand how so many people who supposedly know what to look for, as they are in some form of emergency/rescue work, could ride by a broken guard rail and not look to see what went through it.

I am not going to get into the tire track matter, although I do have questions about that, but guard rails are 2 to 3 ft. above the grass, are easy to spot at any speed, and I have never seen a guard rail erected by the NC DOT that was not immediately visible from the road. They just do not put those things in the woods.

Either someone was not alert, or more than likely the news report was not correct.

If it was the former, someone should kick butt. If it was the latter, the record should be corrected so good people are not blamed.

In any case, if the impact killed the man it is more than likely since neither used their seat belts that the woman was knocked out or nearly so and probably was not able to make any effort to keep her head above water. So even if it took a few minutes for the car to fill, it is not likely she would have survived.

Meaning that it mattered not to the victims that it took 4 days to find them. So although the family is upset, they should lighten up on the cops.