An 86-year-old man received a jaywalking citation earlier this week after he was struck by a car on Geary Boulevard near St. Mary's Cathedral. The man sustained a fractured leg when the vehicle hit him outside the crosswalk, which apparently led to a moral conflict for the officer who was forced to issue the citation.

The officer was "very torn and troubled" about writing the ticket, the Examiner reports. But the officer was literally going by the book, following SFPD's official guidelines that said an officer must issue a citation to the party responsible for a collision.

However, when the officer brought it up to his commander at the SFMTA, the department realized they'd left off a couple key words from their guidelines that would let the responsible party off the hook, as long as they didn't cause anyone else to be injured.. When they realized the error SFMTA Commander Mikail Ali personally called the injured 86-year-old to let him know police had been advised to drop the ticket.

Lest we think we can all walk out into the street willy-nilly (don't, folks, it's super dangerous around here), Ali did say that jaywalkers can be at fault if a driver gets into an accident or injures another person while trying to avoid the illegal pedestrian.

[SFEx]