The thread is about Toronto. What does Calgary have to do with anything?
Speed limits in urban areas are generally like 25. Put down your damn cell phone and watch the road instead of being an asshole. Should be plenty of time to stop unless the pedestrian runs right out in front of you.
As my math shown even a 1/4 mile to the cross walk can be a significant detour when it all adds up.
Are you saying there’s cross walks or street corners within a 1/4 mile of every single area in Toronto?
As mentioned before Jwalking is a common thing in Toronto are you such a buracrat tightass you can’t see how that ticket, when there’s no traffic, might be a little unfair?
Don’t sound to me like the law is being applied fairly or evenly. Sounds more like to me the asshole cop just wanted to haress the poor guy.
And while I’m at it what the fuck is up with those cops demanding ID? Maybe not nazis but super creepy. You can get arrested for not having your papers?
Do you think if he forgot his ID he’d deserve to be arrested for it?
Required to provide your name != required to produce ID.
The simple way to understand this was already explained upthread: You aren’t required to carry state identification, so you can’t possibly be required to produce it on request.
We must be using rather different definitions of “require” “demand” and “compel”. If you fail to produce ID, the state can hold you against your will until your identity is established, that meets the definition in my book. Yes, the state cannot alter time and space to make the impossible happen, but they sure as hell can ask you to do something that turns out to be impossible and thoroughly ruin your day if you fail to comply.
Sure, you’re not “required” to produce it on request, it just happens that if you don’t, the cop will take you down to the station, by force if necessary, and you’ll sit there for an hour or two until they get you identified. What word would you use to describe this?
I echo the concerns about laying hands on a citizen from ehind without any warning that one is a police officer. What if your ninja-like reflexes had resulted in a countering maneuver?
This seems disturbingly like the “knockless entry” stories we hear about, when police confront citizens with fraction-of-a-second decisions to fight, flee, or surrender, without making it at all clear that it’s a legal request by officer(s) of the law. Complicating matters, officers who advise us on rape and kidnapping defense always say “do NOT get into the car, do NOT surrender yourself into the bad guys’ custody” and yet cops are forcing us to risk exactly that in a split second, or be shot for resistsing?
In Ontario, that would be possible for motorists refusing to produce ID, or for bicyclists refusing to give their name and address, or for a person being arrested.
I doubt if it would hold up for the Canadian version of a Terry stop (which falls short of an arrest), which permits investigative questioning only when there is articulable cause to reasonablly suspect criminality. When a person is hauled into a police station, I expect that we would be looking at arrest rather than a brief stop and frisk. An arrest does not require the actual magic words “you are under arrest” – whether an arrest has taken place or not depends on the surrounding facts. Up here in the Great White, it used to be that an officer simply stopping a person against that person’s will constituted arrest (Dedman), but more recently, brief investigative stops have been permitted (Simpson). At the moment, bringing a person in to a police station for questioning against that person’s will is not a brief investigative stop.
I understand from my own research and the cites in this thread that jaywalking is illegal in Toronto, just like it is in Calgary. The jaywalking laws being enforced more stringently in Calgary and hardly at all in Toronto would explain the differences in my attitude towards jaywalking and the OP’s, but just because the Toronto police force chooses not to enforce its own laws doesn’t mean Toronto doesn’t have them.
My point about jaywalking laws for all major centres (assuming of course that most major centres have jaywalking laws) is that they are what I consider to be a reasonable attempt to allow cars and pedestrians to share very busy, dangerous roads. The OP and other people’s mileage is obviously varying.
True. Now, what does this have to do with my point? They can require someone, on reasonable suspicion, to state his name. They still can’t compel him to produce an ID.
True. But now you’re talking about a verbal identification. You’re no longer claiming the officer has a right to compel the production of a shiny piece of plastic from the DMV, or similar physical identification.
Proven?? OK, you cut across the street in the middle of a block, and the cop cites you for jaywalking. Only your wallet’s at home. You give your name, but that doesn’t prove anything. Are you saying that the cop can arrest you for not having an ID? Because that sure sounds like what you’re saying. Unless you’re saying the cop would arrest you for jaywalking even if you provided ID, rather than merely writing you a ticket.
What I’m saying is that writing you a ticket is a worthless gesture if the officer cannot verify your identity. Maybe he can verify your identity without an ID card, maybe he can’t. If he can’t, you are suggesting that the officer is powerless to enforce the law and his only choice is to write a ticket out to whatever potentially phony name he’s been provided. I don’t think that’s the case, I believe the police have the authority to detain you until they are satisfied that your identity has been established.
A cop will ask for your drivers license or other government ID because it is the quickest and easiest way for you to identify yourself in a verifiable way. If you don’t have one, you won’t get a ticket for not having it, but he is going to have to get your identity some other way, and depending on the circumstances that may very well involve a trip to the station.
In NYC there are certain offenses for which a police officer may either issue a desk appearance ticket ( gives a date and time to appear in court) or can go through the full handcuffed, brought to the precinct and fingerprinted arrest. In order for the officer to issue the DAT, identification must be shown. Some ( maybe all, I don’t know) of those brought to the precinct are issued the DAT after the fingerprint results come in.
For a side note, a law prohibiting jaywalking may very well serve a purpose. In Las Vegas a large number of pedestrians are struck trying to cross Las Vegas Blvd illegally. For Nevada as a whole, about 950-1050 pedestrians are struck by a car each year (averages over 10 years) . In 2003 64 pedestrians were killed. Not crossing at an intersection resulted in double the crashes, injuries, and fatalities. I am sure this number is deflated by underreporting. Covering half of the Strip, I frequently hear calls go out for pedestrians struck by a car on the strip, and have taken care of many of them. While my experiences are no way scientific, the numbers support it.
What I’m trying to say is that human judgment doesn’t seem to stop these accidents from happening, so there are laws saying don’t do it. While the cop should have said, “Stop, Police.” I don’t see what is wrong with him citing you for doing something that is not safe.
I have no problems with j-walking laws in areas where the city blocks are short and traffic is busy (Toronto has j-walking bylaws for some streets). I have a problem when a police officer makes up an offence that does not exist (there is no HTA j-walking law that fits the facts as described), and uses that as justification to roust a person.
No disagreement there. It’s just not what you were originally saying.
You may be right, for all I know. What I’m pointing out is that arresting someone for the combination of (a) the commission of a trivial offense such as jaywalking, and (b) not carrying an ID, is tantamount to criminalizing the failure to carry an ID.
Just a WAG, but I’d expect the Strip in Las Vegas is a somewhat extremal situation with respect to hazards involving the interaction of pedestrians and cars.
I realize that The Strip is an extreme example, but it is a good one no less. Even with all of the city’s efforts to deter pedestrians from crossing the street where prohibited, people find a way to do it. I wish the police here would cite more people for doing this.
In any case, it boils down to the fact that the officer can cite you for doing something illegal. If you don’t agree with the law, you should take it up with your representative, not the officer at the scene. Arguing with the officer is only a sure fire way to ensure your going to get cited.
It does kind of appear that way, but it’s really not criminizing no ID, it’s making a trivial offense a major pain in the ass.
Unfortunately, if you’re in a situation where you cannot readily identify yourself to authorities, and those authorities need your identity to give you a citation, that is going to be an unpleasant situation.
Well, it’s a shame that the police find it to be a major pain in the ass that Americans exercise their right to be the free citizens of a country that doesn’t require you to have an ID card on you at all times. If that’s how they view it, then screw 'em sideways. I’m tired of people, from the President of the United States down to the local cop on the beat, that are trying to protect us from our freedoms.
No question about that. But there’s nothing in the lawbooks that says a cop can’t use some judgement.
If someone cuts across the street in the middle of the the block at 1am on a Tuesday night on the Strip, it’s a hazard, and the cop, by ticketing him, is doing what he can to discourage people from engaging in risky behavior. If they do the same thing in downtown Peoria, the cop, by ticketing, is just being a pain in the butt to someone crossing an empty street in an empty town.
Actually, I’ve got a much better record of not getting ticketed when I have protested (in a calm, firm way) to an officer than when I’ve kept my mouth shut and let him do whatever. Being polite and not contesting anything has always been the sure way of getting the ticket, IME.
I didn’t mean it was a PIA for the police, but that a minor infraction would become a major PIA to YOU if you’re unable to identify yourself in a verifiable way.
You’re 100% free to walk around all day long with no ID and no way to identify yourself and nobody going to give you shit for it. However, if you decide at that point to break the law, and wind up getting caught, your run the risk of being much more inconvenienced than someone with an ID at the ready.-
I once got a ticket for jaywalking at 7th and Alvarado in LA (actually, right where all those reporters got assaulted by the LAPD on last May Day). They had a cop on the southeast corner just standing there watching, and when I stepped into to the intersection while the “Don’t Walk” signal (which is a picture, not verbal) started to blink, that was considered an infraction by law.
Okay, technically it’s right. And I agree that that particular intersection is difficult to drive around. But it’s essentially a pedestrian area. The volume of people going around is primarily on foot, and to put up cops to ticket pedestrians (in favor of drivers) when they are not really interfering with traffic is disingenuous. They’re really just trying to rake in money. That’s the way LA is, and has been, for a long time. I think (if my memory serves me), that LA gets about $10 million dollars a day from parking fines.
My ticket was for $30. I paid it, but I paid it two days late. So they raised it to $275 and issued a warrant for my arrest. Imagine getting arresting for paying a jaywalking ticket two days late. I was so enraged that I simply ignored it. Years later, when I had to get a police background check, it had disappeared. In effect, it was merely a bureaucratic bluff.
