The police in my town (upstate New York near Poughkeepsie) like to do "safety checks" periodically. The town is on the Hudson river and Route 9W passes through it. They set up at two locations, on the north and and south ends of town, at points where 9W is one lane in each direction. The locations are conveniently located next to large parking lots that they can pull people over into. They typically start before morning rush hour and stay until mid afternoon. Once in a while they'll do the opposite, starting mid afternoon and running til well past evening rush hour.
And basically it's a roadblock. They put officers in the center line of the 2-lane road and look for expired inspection stickers and registrations. They pull over dozens of people on their way to or from work, and generally completely wreck traffic. But they don't care, because generating revenue is way more important than letting people go on about their lives.
This isn't a big deal on a personal level compared to some of the stories in this thread, but it's incredible just how oppressive the cops here are to ordinary people. They pull stuff like this, they park in apple orchards near deserted 3-way intersections between 5 and 6 PM to catch people rolling through a useless stop sign on their way home from work, etc. They see us not as citizens to be protected and served, but as a source of income to be fleeced at every opportunity.