Any seasoned traffic cop can tell you dozens of mystifying stories about the things drivers have said to avoid getting a ticket (or rather, the dumb things they've said to try and avoid getting a ticket that didn't even come close to working.)

Officers working with the Toronto Police Service are no exception, talking to thousands upon thousands of speeding motorists every year — some of them more clever than others.

The TPS Traffic Services Twitter account shared a particularly lame excuse from one local last week, including a cute graphic of a pensive smiley face character with the words "things that make you go hmmm..."

"VZET officers hear excuses every day," reads the tweet. "When this driver was stopped for 82 km in a 50 km zone, he said 'I wasn't speeding, the car was!'"

#VZET Officers hear excuses everyday. When this driver was stopped for 82 km in a 50 km zone,he said “I wasn’t speeding,the car was!”…Anything u as a driver do behind the wheel is your responsibility. Slow down,that’s what the brake is for. @TPScott_baptist @jamesramertps pic.twitter.com/p6mhqM8gH5

— TPS Traffic Services (@TrafficServices) December 15, 2021

As it turns out, the operator of a vehicle is responsible for that vehicle's actions. Cars can't be blamed for speeding on their own because... well, they're cars.

Even nearly-autonomous vehicles lack the capacity to make moral choices that would result in dangerous driving behaviour.

"Anything u as a driver do behind the wheel is your responsibility," as the TPS Traffic Services account put it when tweeting about the aforementioned incident.

"Slow down, that's what the brake is for."

If you must, for some reason, make up an excuse, you could at least try to make it believable; being late for work or even bad at reading maps are things that are humanly possible.

A car deciding to go 32 km/h over the speed limit on its own? Not so much. Not yet, anyway.