Over the past several years, I've gotten a number of speeding tickets along the lines of "86 in a 65" where the average speed on the road was probably 80. Them's the breaks.

I've personally had good luck in court. If you hire a local attorney who knows how the system works (in Houston, you want David Sprecher, great article there, by the way), they'll probably charge you the face value of the ticket and will, with high probability, get you out of it. Most recently, for me, I got written up for two things: speeding and having the address on my drivers license out of date. I got off the speeding part and had to pay a fine for the out-of-date address. I can deal with that.

More generally, I've lived here long enough that I know where most of the speeding traps might be on my daily drive. It kills me to slow down on certain big, empty freeways, but I've seen too many cops there, and they've got plenty of places to hide.

On the longer drives out in the middle of nowhere, it's usually not worth it to fight the tickets, since you would have to drag your ass out to the Nowhere County Courthouse. That's what defensive driving is for...