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I got a ticket for jaywalking when I lived in downtown Washington, DC about 15 years ago. The officer asked to see my license (what if I hadn't had one?) and wr

I got a ticket for jaywalking when I lived in downtown Washington, DC about 15 years ago. The officer asked to see my license (what if I hadn't had one?) and wrote a ticket, but as a warning with no fine. Said it was the first sunny day of the Spring and the city had him out to try to cut down on tourists etc. wandering around and possibly getting hit by cars.

Mountain_Skies 6y ago
Generally in the US you are not required to carry identification but you are required to give truthful identification information when asked by a law enforcement officer. If you didn't have your drivers license that day, you likely would have still received the warning ticket. If you lied about your identification, you may have gotten away with it but if caught in that lie, the consequences would have been much higher than a mere jaywalking ticket.
wyclif 6y ago
The cops love issuing jaywalking tickets in DC, it's a tradition. Quick story: about 10 years ago I walked over to the Library of Congress with two friends from Virginia, and we walked across the street in the middle of the block. There was an officer way down on the corner and he screamed at us "HEY! No jaywalking!" and we hustled across as quickly as we could and went inside the library, looking at each other with puzzled glances. It never occurred to any of us that we simply couldn't walk across the street, and all of us are from the northeast US corridor. I'm a US citizen and that was the first time and the last time that anyone has scolded me for jaywalking (just so the EU people reading this understand: it's not usually enforced here except in the biggest cities).