It is called the law enforcement growth industry. Many towns in the USA rely heavily on tickets in order to stay afloat. Read "Why We Drive" by Mathew Crawford. He has a very healthy dedication of pages with references to this topic in that book. Many cop unions push for these kinds of victimless crime laws. More laws -> more potential crime -> more cops neccessary. Locally, the cops fight each other over who gets traffic detail for the last 5 years of their "career". They go nuts issuing traffic tickets because this effects their performance review and pushes up their bonuses. For the bulk of their "working" life, they'll get $108k/year. But, on traffic detail, their salaries go up to $160k/year and that is what their pensions are pegged to. They receive 60% of that $160k as pension (fully indexed to inflation) for the rest of their lives. It is one of the reasons I want to move away from here.