Tempus,

Since when do people in Austin actually stop for red lights? I moved here from the Milwaukee, WI area a few years ago (and EvilDark is right when you get the points and ticket cost reduced in WI the court fees always seem to conveniently bring it back up to the original ticket $ amount) and I swear that everyone in Austin is a transplanted LA or Boston driver. I have never seen such repeated flagrant (and often downright dangerous) violation of traffic law as there exists in this city. I've had people pull up next to me at a stop light, look both ways, and then drive on through.

The "Texas Off-ramp" is a cute habit too (all large roads here have frontage roads that run nearly their entire length so when someone gets annoyed and stuck in traffic they just drive over the median of grass to the frontage road and back not waiting for an actual exit to show up).

While I have yet to be pulled over in this state it is my understanding that the first ticket essentially automatically gets waived if you take a cheap defensive driver course before the court date.