RCW 46.61.021

Duty to obey law enforcement officer—Authority of officer.

Applied in 41 court decisions — leading case State v. Mendez (1999)

Most recently applied in State of Washington v. Chad Dray Olson (March 2025)

2006 c 270 s 1; 1997 sp.s. c 1 s 1; 1989 c 353 s 7; 1979 ex.s. c 136 s 4.

How often courts cite this section

citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) Any person requested or signaled to stop by a law enforcement officer for a traffic infraction has a duty to stop.

(2) Whenever any person is stopped for a traffic infraction, the officer may detain that person for a reasonable period of time necessary to identify the person, check for outstanding warrants, check the status of the person's license, insurance identification card, and the vehicle's registration, and complete and issue a notice of traffic infraction.

(3) Any person requested to identify himself or herself to a law enforcement officer pursuant to an investigation of a traffic infraction has a duty to identify himself or herself and give his or her current address.

Official source: Washington State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Washington statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.