[dkarl]

I live in a city where speed limits are sensibly enforced. Lazy cops don't randomly set up shop and start ticketing people for normal, safe behavior. Officers here are known to sit beside the freeway letting hundreds of people drive by at 70-75 mph and then go lights flashing after the one guy weaving in and out of traffic at 90 mph. That kind of sanity is impressive to me, who never expected professionalism and intelligence (of all things!) out of police officers.

The reason people complain about speeding tickets is that speed limits are inconsistently enforced. Speed limits are usually about 10 mph too low for normal conditions, and enforcement reflects that. Yet in some places, enforcement is strict, and it's impossible to predict where without local knowledge. For instance, on a major road near my apartment that goes out to some major suburbs, there is a little stretch going through a separate municipality where the speed limit drops inexplicably and is very strictly enforced, practically 24/7. All the locals know it, but woe to the out-of-towner who fails to heed the locals' example and hit the brakes.

But at least that's consistent. Where I grew up, inconsistency was the key. You never saw them set up twice in the same place, unless the speed limit was especially unreasonable at that place. Enforcement was so random that everybody ignored it, and everybody had paranoid theories. (It's the end of the month; they're just filling their quotas. My ex-wife's brother is a cop, I bet he asked his buddy to go after me. Goddamn white cops don't like seeing a Mexican with a pretty white girl. Goddamn Mexican cops don't like seeing a white guy with a pretty Mexican girl.) There was no pragmatic benefit to ticketing people for driving safe, normal speeds, so naturally everybody came up with unflattering theories and nobody changed their driving behavior.

So yeah, traffic citations can be bullshit even if the driver is guilty.