A lot of traffic laws are guidelines until you do something worse, or fit a cop's profile of "suspicious." In the same vein as the old "broken taillight" ruse (

A lot of traffic laws are guidelines until you do something worse, or fit a cop's profile of "suspicious." In the same vein as the old "broken taillight" ruse (the trope is that you get pulled over for no reason and the cop breaks your taillight). Roll through a stop sign during rush hour? in most places you're fine. Roll through a stop sign late at night when bars close? Maybe you'll get pulled over for it and a sobriety check. The laws are rooted in safe ideals, but are applied on a whim based on police bias. Personally I think self-driving cars should err on the side safe ideals (even if they're slightly less practical), and the laws should be applied to human drivers in a more uniform manner. I've had some bad run-ins with police myself (pulled over and searched for having a mirror ornament, pulled over for doing 5 over the limit, etc)... and follow every asinine road rule because of it.