What can happen if a driver does not show his ID?

Fargo, ND (Valley News Live) – in 2024, 299 traffic stops involved drivers without a valid driving license. At this moment 2025 is in the rhythm to beat this number, because there were 35 cases, of which six were only warnings.

Fargo police can do only so many things during a minor traffic stop, especially when the police are facing those who do not have the ID or do not provide it.

“It becomes very difficult if we do not have information from you about who you are,” said David Zibolski, Fargo police chief. “We do other investigation measures to try to discover this.”

Officers have other tactics they can use to eventually identify a driver, such as running the registration plate to make sure it is not stolen. In cases where the officers pull someone and do not offer an ID, their hands could be tied. Zibolski says you don’t have your physical driving license on you while driving is not necessarily a crime.

“If they do not want to tell us who they are, by law, we cannot arrest them just to not identify. Without this on the books, you can be in a point where we can’t take any additional measure, ”said Zibolski.

Fargo police do not keep specific records about how many drivers do not show their ID when they are drawn. One of the reasons why the officers might hard to make someone identify with the lack of a stop and the identification status.

“There is no stop and identification status, he says you can ask for their name, but there is no penalty or requirement to offer them. This is the jurisprudence of the US Supreme Court and the jurisprudence of the North Dakota Supreme Court, ”said Zibolski.

Zibolski says certain laws could help his officers in the patrol, making drivers who have been stopped and are detained to identify.

“It would be helpful if we actually had a state law that made a crime for someone legally detained by an officer not to offer identification and if you do this for the jurisprudence of the US Supreme Court, it would be something that officers could take action,” said Zibolski.

The conversation of what the officers can do while stopping traffic continues at the police department. In an E -mail to Valley News Live, Fargo said he was working on drafting a “memory” recently sent to officers on how they will manage these types of situations before they release it. However, the document was classified as a “training bulletin” and will not be launched due to the North Dakota Code.