I lived in Columbia for 12 years, before retiring and escaping from Maryland. I agree with everything you said, except for the speeders being ticketed part.
Columbia traffic generally moves at least 10 MPH over the speed limit, whenever possible, and woe betide anyone driving slower. The county and state police manning the radar don’t even look twice at a car going less that 10 MPH over the limit.
There are also areas within even peaceful villages that can get “interesting”. The wooded parks around where I lived would sometimes echo with gunfire on warm nights. That happened so much that the police only asked if anyone was shot, or anything was hit by bullets. The glass in the entrance to my apt building was hit by a bullet once, and even management didn’t seem much interested.
I asked an officer once about all the nighttime gunfire, and he said that there were young people around who liked to play at being gangsters, and as long as all they did was fire their weapons at nothing in particular, they were let alone. He went on to say that for the most part, the actual bad guys, as well as the pretenders were known to law enforcement.
One thing that always bugged me. Most of the community police carried bicycles on they’re cars, but in all my years logging miles on the bike trails, I never once saw a LEO on a bike.
They know that all hell can and will break out if this government continues to stand on the necks of Americans who simply just want to be left alone on their private land to live their lives with their families without having government deciding what an American may or may not do at any given time depending upon which Politician was being reelected to office!