Overzealous Traffic Police at LAX

I occasionally drop off and pick up people from LAX. The lack of common sense of many of the traffic police makes me wonder what they are being told to do by their supervisors. Recently, I picked up my wife at the Southwest terminal at 8 p.m. I saw her waiting but could not get over to the inside lane to pick her up. I pulled over by the shuttle bus lane for no more than 30 seconds with no one behind me. She climbed in the car and we started to drive away, when a traffic policeman knocked on my window and told me to pull over. He started writing me a ticket, making me wait in the red zone, and now blocking traffic because he made me wait for 10 minutes while he filled out the ticket.

I have other examples (making drivers move their cars when there is no line and no other cars are waiting), but the issue is, aren’t they there to make things run more smoothly, not less?

Peter Canepa

Los Angeles