Boy do I agree, it's the chuckle heads that just drive down the road oblivious to other traffic - while they are probably the greatest threat to safety, they are the least likely to get stopped because they aren't breaking the speed limit.
Unfortunately traffic safety and revenue enhancement are not mutally exclusive, writing tickets is as more about revenue (the result) then getting bad drivers off the road.
Actually, Bernie, automated enforcement aside, the preponderance of speed enforcement over citing just plain bad drivers by uniformed patrol officers has very little to do with making money.
I did a little research into this and it comes down to this.
1. The public has been trained for a generation or two that "Speed kills". So, when the see speeding, they complain, even if its not really dangerous speeding.
2. Politicians offices and local authorities get those calls, and respond with pumping up speed enforcement actions, in the name of serving the citizens.
3. It's super easy to defend a speeding citation in court. We measured a number, cut and dried. Guilty. Unsafe lane changes? Improper following distance? Very hard to prove such in court.
4. We like numbers, numbers show work was done. So, if I can generate a large number of citations for X number of man-hours of patrol time, I can show work was done, tax dollars bought something worthwhile. Switching to stupid driver enforcement would mean a drop in numbers.
Look at Rt 4 in Calvert. The only real speed related fatality I can think of in recent memory was that officer who crested the hill and t-boned that young lady. All the others were simple failure to yield, folks pulling out in front of traffic. But what does the CCSO do? Run saturation speed enforcement, because it's not about fixing the problem, it's about being seen doing something the public
thinks will solve the problem.