Absurd and complete bs. HPD goes after soft targets. OK seat belt violations are one thing, but illegals riding around with no tags, no inspection sticker or registration, and ignoring the traffic laws don’t get stopped. Plus, with the ecomonic activity down, the city of Houston is really hurting in the tax money downturn. For the last 18 months, there has been LOTS of traffic enforcement on the roads, close to triple than before. This is just about tax revenue.
They always say it's about safety, but in the end, real safety takes a back seat to revenue. Just look at the red light cameras. If they really wanted safety, they'd lengthen the yellow lights by a second or two (or add a second of dead time, where all lights are red) so that traffic could clear the intersection, but that would mean a loss of $.
HPD goes after PROFITABLE targets. Namely, people who would actually PAY their tickets.