Are traffic tickets an effective deterrent to speeding? Or are they just a way for the states to cash in on the driving public?

You are driving down the road enjoying the day when you look behind you and see the flashing lights move up. Your hands begin to sweat, you feel the lump in your throat drop into your stomach like a rock, and you feel your face flush with anger, disgust, and outrage. How dare this cop pull you over for something as trivial as speeding? Don't they have better things to do with their time? You quickly check to see if you're wearing your seatbelt, dig into the glove box for your registration, and prepare for the inevitable citation. As the officer steps up to the vehicle, you do your best to look like an innocent traveler making your way home from work. You hope that the officer will take pity on you and let you off with a warning. No such luck today. The officer returns to the window and hands you the pen. Your heart stops for just a moment, and you have to hold back the rage that wells up inside as you pen your name to the court order. You smirk as the cop has the nerve to say: "Have a nice day, and slow down." Your first impulse is to tear up the ticket and stuff it into the ash tray, but the most you are able to do is throw it in disgust on to the floor or into the dash. You put the car into drive and do your best to compose yourself as you think about the fine, and the money you have lost. All because you were not paying attention to your speed and thinking about more important things happening in your life. The incident leaves you angry because you were totally powerless to do anything but sit there and have judgment passed on you as a driver, an individual, and a responsible citizen. How dare he pick you, out of the hundreds of cars on the road, when just moments before you were passed by someone travailing at a much higher rate of speed. He wasn't caught why were you so lucky to get the ticket. The whole world is going to hell and you have been given a ticket for doing a few miles-per-hour over the limit. Why can't he pick on some real criminals? There must be crooks out there that he could be rounding up. Instead, he is taking money away from you and your family. The state gets more than its fair share in taxes, why must they come for more by issuing these stupid fines and speeding tickets. Being pulled over and detained would do just as much good as the fine that they impose on you. You are close to home now and new thoughts pick at your mind. Now you have to tell your wife. She is going to be very upset that you have to pay this fine. She had plans for the weekend and now you can't go. The fine is just enough to cause a dent in your weekend funds and the kids will have to settle for the park or some other activity that doesn't require money. You won't hear the end of this until she comes home with a ticket. Then it can be your turn to be upset. It's a vicious cycle, one that does nothing to stop speeding, nor does it help the economy. It just seems that the more they take in fines, the more they spend on the force. The cops tell you they don't get any of the money because it goes to the school fund. However, how much money did the government have to take away from the schools to pay for all this equipment in the first place? They are borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, and they expect us to believe that it is all for some noble cause. You pull into the driveway. You sit in the car for several moments waiting for the ticket to magically disappear. Again, no such luck. It just sits there and stares at you, waiting to take your money and disrupt a perfectly good evening with your family. Tomorrow you will return to work, driving the same route, the same speed, and the same way you do every day. Hopefully, tomorrow it will be someone else's turn to give the state its tithe.
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Traffic enforcement is meant to do many things, and in some cases it does save lives. However, more and more we are seeing the abuse of citation from counties and states that require these revenues to supplement taxes and funding. How can we trust a system that demands a certain level of tickets to maintain a balanced budget? Does this not influence the amount of tickets handed out? Why do we need fines in the first place? If a motorist is so dangerous on the highway to demand they be stopped, would it not be reasonable to assume that they should be dealt with more severely than a piece of paper and a few short minutes out of their day?
I fully understand the ideas behind traffic tickets, but it should be obvious that it does not work. The only thing that has slowed down the number of tickets in the past few years is the increase in speed limits. Will someone please look at this with an open mind and rethink this antiquated philosophy? The time has come to ask ourselves if it really makes a difference.
MRM