For a long time the blue line stickers were limited to the immediate families of LEO, at least around here. If you had one and your husband/wife/parent wasn’t a cop, you’d get the steeper ticket, as far as I understood it.
Now, now I just see them as ‘I <3 security theater’ bumper sticker. These blue lines really did start as little stickers maybe 2 inches across for the driver side rear glass. So the officer would see it on their way to your window.
