If you frequent a car forum with a lot of fairly young members, you’ve probably seen plenty of threads that ridicule, insult, and otherwise denigrate police officers. Cops, the complainers assert, give ridiculous, stupid tickets. They abuse their authority. And they are rude.

I don’t like getting tickets any more than you, and I’ve run into the occasional testy officer. In general, though, I can’t complain about the way I’ve been treated and the frequency with which I’ve been cited.

On my way home last Friday, for instance, I was pulled over by a State Trooper in my Protégé. He explained that the numbers and the exhaust were suspicious, and that he thought he’d pull me over just to have a look. I told him that I use the Protégé for ice racing, and that the numbers and stickers are required. He checked my license, good-naturedly asked me if I was aware that numbers and loud exhaust would get me pulled over, and sent me on my way.

I have no problem with what the trooper did, even though, by his own admission, he had no actual reason to stop me. Beaten-up cars with numbers and loud exhausts are suspicious, and if I were him I might want to check out my car as well. The trooper was friendly, honest, and polite; aside from the 10 minutes I lost having to sit there, and the initial fear that I might be cited for something, the stop couldn’t have been more pleasant.

Of course, one incident isn’t enough to make an argument that the police are easy on us and that we should thank them every time they write us for 85 when they “know” we were doing 90. But that’s not my argument anyway. The current system is flexible and inexact. As the complainers on forums are quick to whine about, officers can do just about anything they want during a stop. But the forum complainers are quick to forget that that often works in drivers’ favor, as it did for me last weekend.

Further, that flexible system affords all of us the right to contest our tickets (the ones we’re not responsible for and the ones we are responsible for) in court, where a polished appearance and humble presentation are often all that’s necessary to win. When I think about all the tickets I’ve received and successfully fought in court, not to mention all the tickets that I could have received but have not because of the flexibility of the current system, I’m very reluctant to complain about a random pull-over or a ticket for doing 5 or 10 over late at night.

Could our traffic enforcement system and laws be better? Is the current one occasionally unjust, illogical, even unfair? Sure. But the times when the flexibility of the current system has worked for me outnumber the times it has worked against me at least 10 to 1. With those numbers, I’m perfectly happy to play along and work the system.