In central Europe it works slightly differently. When stopped by police and getting ticket, you can decide not to pay it on the spot and instead send the infrac

In central Europe it works slightly differently. When stopped by police and getting ticket, you can decide not to pay it on the spot and instead send the infraction to administrative proceedings. There you have chance to dispute the ticket at the cost of risking higher ticket (to cover the cost of proceedings) if found that you really committed the infraction. But if you have friends either at police or at the office which handles the proceedings, you can ask them to pull a few strings, and the ticket simply disappears/gets time-barred/... But at least it's not as brazen as these "courtesy cards". Also your "friends" will usually have influence only locally, to cover up something in different city will be much more complicated. EDIT: Also forgot to mention that cops here know not to bother car with "nice" licence plate numbers, interestingly enough, even though the numbers should be random, there is a class of people who tend to get them disproportionally often...