Originally posted by: dman6666
There was a comedian who did a bit on that...
Sitting in the left turn lane, the light turns green, a few cars get through, it's yellow, he's still a few cars back, he's tailgating the car in front of him, getting pissed because they are taking to long to go. He's almost to the intersection, he goes for it, the light turns red as he's going through. He's feeling all pressured as he's broken the law, yadda yadda.
Then he looks in his mirror and 3 more people are following behind him scooting through the red.
There are so many intersections here that the Left Turn signal is too short and the interval between lights is a bit long. There's a few that have dual lanes and go back probably .25 mile, and they'll let maybe 5 cars through before turning yellow. If you know there are that many cars, time the light a bit longer, at least during rush hour.
OTOH, those same places-- Even though they are stealing time from the green, they aren't causing me to wait a 2nd round on the straight-thru. So, it doesn't bother me much.
I've never seen a cop write a ticket for that -- and -- I've seen 'em at the intersections too, just idling along waiting to go thru on straight and a few cars will blip thru. Nothing.
At least the red-light cameras are illegal here. I agree with that. If red-light running is a problem, it's most likely a traffic engineering situation. Adjust the lights / timing and the problem drops dramatically. Install a camera and you just raise money for the city/state. Guess which solution is more popular? $$$ or Safety? $$$ wins.