Yup.
Now, if he didn't do it, I'm more sympathetic. But this appears to be nothing more than just a routine, run-of-the-mill PITA. Bet that he's a hoot at parties.
And IMO, "9 mph over" says to me that he was likely going faster, but the cop went easy on him. Just a guess though, I've got nothing to substantiate that.
In residential areas, when you exceed a certain speed, you lose your license, and are arrested. This is a huge hassle for the officer, as it takes him off his beat, lots of paperwork, then appearing in court. If the person ticketed was decent to the officer, he will only cite them the max speed before hitting the “mark”, your probably right.
Most of the time the driver is appreciative that it could have been much worse. In this case, in hindsight, the guy should have been arrested, the car impounded, and possibly the person would have lost his license. According to his comments, he did not learn the lesson that a ticket attempts to teach most sane, responsible people.