So why is that so many police officers go brain dead when assigned to traffic duty? Answer me that.

Case in point: Last week while testing a bunch of different motorcycles in Vancouver – read about it Thursday in Globe Auto – I was shocked to see a cop jump out into the middle of traffic. He was waving down two cars for allegedly speeding.

I was riding in the opposite direction and what I saw so shocked me, I almost turned around to give the pink-vested cop a piece of my mind. What he did was reckless and endangered not only himself but other drivers.

As for the people he pulled over, they might have been speeding, but if they were it wasn't by much. We're not talking street racing here, folks. Not possible in the middle of a busy workday morning in a crowded city like Vancouver.

This was all bout revenue collection, not safety. What the cop did was, in fact, anything but safe.

The next day, returning from Whistler down the Sea-to-Sky highway, I witnessed another piece of brilliant police work. At the bottom of a long, straight downhill stretch near a place called Lions Bay, the cops had set up another speed trap.

The posted limit there is 80 km/hour. It's pretty easy to slide past 90 km/hour on that bit of downhill, but it is so straight and so wide open, with two lanes in either direction, well, going a bit past the limit does not in any way pose a danger to society.

No, I was not nabbed there; I know it's a likely trap and always watch my speed. Others were nailed, though. They all looked like normal middle class folks to me. No obvious criminals, no reckless lunatics at all.

Again, this speed trap was obviously about revenue collection, not public safety.

My advice to anyone caught in an absurd speed trap is to fight it. I did and won my case in July.

I had been pulled over more than a year ago for allegedly speeding on a Sunday afternoon. I argued with the cop that I was not speeding, that we were just two middle-aged guys going to play golf, driving along in the most modest of family sedans.

And then I said I'd see him in court. Which I did.

Two cops showed up, one of them a detective who had been doing traffic duty the year before. He was the witness. The other acted as prosecutor.

I acted in my own defence. When the judge asked me if I had any courtroom experience, I replied: “Only what I've seen on Law and Order.” He laughed and so did the gallery, though the two policemen remained stone-faced.

Long story short, the two cops were an embarrassment. They failed to present evidence properly and the judge was unhappy that they appeared to be discussing their testimony outside the courtroom during a break in the proceedings.

In the end the judge – who was not at all sympathetic to their plight -- said the policemen had made a major blunder in presenting evidence. He told me he'd dismiss the case if I made the request.

I did. Case dismissed. The incompetence of the police was not rewarded.

Like any sensible person, I am all for safe driving. But when the police set up speed traps only to collect revenue, then I see it as my civic duty to do what I can to discourage them.

If nothing else, I hope we'll see fewer police officers with their brains turned off, playing in traffic.