This is very similar in France (as a rule, I am not taking into account some complicated areas).

My children see the police as strongly positive figures.

When I bike and do do some slightly illegal stuff (not crossing on a red light, rather avoiding some cars by slowly biking on a desert pavement) they would usually either stare to make their point (and I hop back on the road) or just ignore it. This is some kind of an unspoken agreement which has its limits.

I had a case where they stopped me because they saw that I drove through a red light after waiting on the green one. What happened is that there was an old man slowly crossing on his red light (a desert small city on a Sunday afternoon, there was just us), I patiently waited and did not realize that the light changed right when I drove off (onto a roundabout, still deserted). They jokingly congratulated me for not driving over the pedestrian but would have gone full throttle should that have been a true danger and deliberate rules breaking (or a dangerous error).