Not a single one of my tickets were for speeding. I forgot to mention that, so I think it's more likely that this animosity is from people equating tickets = lunatic driver. I drive like an old man on the road.
I'm glad your NYC friends are well-off, but different neighborhoods are different. The south side of various cities are completely different from north side. This isn't a new phenomenon, and it matters where your friends are. I don't think it's very wise to draw conclusions from a sample size of three.
Perhaps I'm an atypical example, but it sounds like my story resonated with a bunch of other people, so I'd bet the other way. That ~$50M/yr has to come from somewhere, and if the revenue started drying up, they'd simply invent more rules until it didn't.
You're not wrong about the carelessness, but given that I make sure to be careful where it matters, are you sure you want to reward the behavior you're defending? A life of papers and registrations, dotted i's and crossed t's is pretty annoying.
Yes, my plates were expired for one day, and I got a $60 ticket for it. Yep, I was somehow parked in a tow zone (that someone else tried to park in too, and I see multiple cars per month fall into the same trap) and so I got to pay over $400 when all was said and done. Yep, I turned left at a green light when there was no oncoming traffic even though the damn thing was marked "don't turn left without an arrow" and a cop was watching it like a hawk just to meet their quota.
Does that make it all my fault? Maybe. You can think what you want, but at least you aren't analyzed daily for any vulnerable patterns in your behavior to exploit.