Fascism incarnate.
Yo, boot, what happens when the bootiers boot back?
Why, we deboot you, fools…
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My understanding, which is as likely to be misinformed as not, is that when walking or cycling you are not required to carry a license, or ID. An officer can ask you to identify yourself and you’re required to (verbally is fine). If he wishes to write you a ticket, however, and you don’t have official ID on you, then they’re basically going to have to arrest you until they can prove you are who you say you are.
It’s… a little rare for it to come to that. But then again it’s fairly rare for a regular person to get a ticket for jaywalking. Those laws tend to be wielded against people for other reasons, same as the laws downtown about not being allowed to sit on the sidewalks. They’re selectively enforced as simple ways to arrest drunk or homeless people.
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Cue police apologists chiming in, saying they’re only doing their job. Which is demanding and thankless, etc.
What? On BoingBoing?
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An interesting bit of history on Jaywalking:
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Wait, that’s not true is it? I thought you only have to have a driver’s license if you’re driving and you only have to carry ID for certain special functions like flying or trying to get into some government buildings.
Some states (not all) require you to identify yourself if asked by a police officer. I imagine (but don’t know) that most or all require you to identify yourself if arrested. But none actually requires you to have ID just because, in general, do they?
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Stop and identify laws vary from state to state. Some states do seem to obliquely require some type of identifying document, though there also appears (note #3 in the below article) to be supreme court discussion of this aspect of these laws.
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Jaywalking as a concept has fascinated me since I heard of it as a child. Bill Hicks has some good material on the ills of the ‘Pedestrian Right-of-Way Law’ but beyond stand up comedy, I’ve gotta think; the cars should not be colliding with pedestrians, therefore the pedestrians have right of way.
Of course, this becomes more complicated when you’re frogging across multiple lanes of a busy US highway or interstate or some-such.
Not like the single roads with ‘passing places’ in Scotland, so perhaps I don’t have that much perspective on this topic…
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I say this with respect, because we each get to choose our own approach, but I decided on the exact opposite: I specifically don’t carry ID when I’m exercising, and I also check to make sure I’m not carrying anything with my name or address on it, because it feels so fucking great, when you’re asked “do you have any ID on you”, to say no. I’m not asking permission to be in the world.
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The cops on bikes stopped her. You can see they keep in shape. Then they called the Chris Christy cops who took her away in their patrol car.
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I live in Arizona, and we’re “PAPER’S, PLEASE!” state, so, you know…
But most cops probably don’t understand the actual laws and rather just expect people to have identification (it’s another way for them to act aggressive toward innocent people).
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Is that sarcasm?
Actually, I haven’t seen too many authoritarian trolls around here of late… they used to be part of the furniture.
Fucking word.
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I didn’t read that whole Wikipedia article, but it looks to me like none of the states require you to carry written ID. Just that some require you to provide it if you are carrying it.
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You’re right, I forgot about that. Your whole state is a special case in that regard.
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I’m so old and ate up I still think I live in this country that we used to call America where you didn’t have to carry your identification papers because it was very unlikely that a cop would ever stop you unless you were doing something really outrageous. I really miss that place. I’ve told my kids about it but they just roll their eyes and say “yeah sure Dad”.
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Yo, cops, can’t you find real crime?
If not, consider yourself defunded.
No MRAP for you, you fuckin’ boots.
To serve and protect?
From what, being human in Austin?
grrrrr
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Agrrrrreed.
Victim blaming always makes me so hungry.
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It definitely doesn’t look like there’s an explicit requirement, but it does look like there’s a tangle of manufactured justification for detaining someone who doesn’t provide an ID. Near the end of the article, there are two cases cited as holding that “police may perform a search for written identification if a suspect refuses to provide it.” Reading through a couple statutes, the stop and identify laws have vague rules for identifying information that give police ample means to maintain a detention if they feel suspicious of what they hear.
The only time I have I.D. on me is when I’m driving. I don’t carry my driver’s license when I’m walking the dog, hiking, walking in general. I do carry my cell phone and if I get hit by a car or whatever, that should provide any info required. If the phone gets smashed…it’ll all take care of itself.
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