Richard: Complain about that ticket, but remember what else police do

Often times, when I meet someone and they learn that I am a police officer, I am greeted with a comment or story about a traffic citation of some kind. It’s often a complaint about how they felt they should have benefited from the officer’s discretion, but didn’t.
Traffic code enforcement is indeed the context in which there is the most contact between citizens and officers, so I can understand how this may be the default subject of conversation, but I’m nonetheless struc