There once was a retired federal court judge in Australia who on receiving a red light camera ticket showed up at court, was duly sworn, stated that he had lent his car to a friend on that day, a visiting academic from the US, and that she must have run the red. The court threw out the ticket, as they of course would.
It just so happened there was a newspaper journalist in the court that day, looking for stories as one does in that occupation, and this retired federal judge was palpably the most interesting person on the docket for the day, so she filed a report. The editor at the paper had a brief Google and it transpired the driver nominated by the retired judge was dead… and had been for three years. And then they dug deeper. And it got worse.
All this for $77AU and some licence points.
Why do people do things like this? Because they think they can get away with it, and quite often, they do, for years and years. And then one day, they don’t.