Well, this is disappointing. The folks at Lifehacker have put together a list of traffic myths, many of which I firmly believed in, and completely debunked them. Apparently "going with the flow" is not actually good driving advice, no matter what my poorly informed driver's ed instructor told me. The article features traffic expert Derek Bambauer, Professor of Law at the University of Arizona, who gives an explanation why the following popular traffic myths don't hold up:

1) Your Ticket Is Automatically Dropped If the Officer Doesn’t Show Up to Court 2) “Radar Inaccuracy” Is a Good Defense for Traffic Tickets 3) Not Signing a Ticket and Other Clerical Mistakes Will Get You Off the Hook 4) Matching the “Flow of Traffic” and Passing Are Valid Excuses for Speeding 5) You’re More Likely to Get a Ticket at the End of the Month Due to Ticket Quotas 6) Traffic Tickets Don’t Transfer to Other States 7) It’s Illegal to Drive Barefoot (Hey, it's not all bad news!) 8) You Can Keep a Ticket Off Your Record by Paying a Little Extra.

Read the full details of the myths and their debunking at Lifehacker: Eight Popular Ticket and Traffic Law Myths, Debunked