this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2025
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chapotraphouse
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Maybe the red lights where she is are just so poorly timed that she is encouraged to run a red?
It's possible. If you're going to run a red, do it safely and not on camera.
WTF? I think safety has gone out the window when you run a red light.
Depends. If you're at a complete stop, the intersection has good visibility (so you can see there's no traffic), and the roads aren't too large, it's pretty similar to other maneuvers like a stop sign or uncontrolled left turn.
I didn't trust drivers to properly make these judgements so they shouldn't do it at all, though.
It depends on the driving culture in a city. In the city I used to work in, there were the number of accidents went up due to the city putting up red light cameras because the culture at the time was to run reds for a bit after the light changed. When they put up the cameras, people would slam on their brakes and get rear ended. Obviously, all of this can be avoided with public transit, but these are the realities of driving.
This is far less likely to injure or kill than the kind of collision that occurs more often when people are trying to deliberately run a red light.
People who slam on the breaks to avoid running a red are not deliberately running reds, they're estimating that they have time to NOT run a red and changing their estimation too late
Agreed.
Moot and completely misunderstanding what I am saying.
I don't think this is the case
Then explain how you understand what I am saying
not the person in the chain, but it came across something like "trying to change an unsafe driving culture is the real problem"
Clearly people are reading more into it than I intended, because it's only supposed to illustrate that going against the accepted car culture leads to more collisions
yeah, I felt bad about responding after I scrolled down and saw another sub-thread. Your point about unintended consequences is valid, the context of the example is hard not to reject. Suprised I didn't see anyone bring up non-local drivers, which I think allows a less direct rebuttal.
In response to someone saying, essentially, "there is no safe way to run a red light", you stated,
What I understand you mean by this is that there was a culture in which people ran red lights regularly. [Aside: this kind of behavior is known to be associated with elevated fatality rates in urban collisions, especially when they involve pedestrians and cyclists. Choosing to do this kind of behavior is as reprehensible as antimaskery/antivaxxery]. Then, when the relevant government entity began enforcing laws against running reds with automatic camera /radar systems, people began slamming on their brakes to avoid running a red light. This increased the number of rear-end type collisions.
Did I get anything wrong?
The reason I said,
is because shifting the distribution of collisions away from red-light-running-involved collisions, which frequently involve higher speeds than rear-end type collisions, results in a reduction in all kinds of fatal crashes, and a significant reduction in non-fatal crashes. . It is empirically better to have a slight increase in rear end collisions if it cooccurs with a decrease in more severe collisions.
To be clear, I completely agree with you when you said,
but I cannot support the clause that follows,
because red light running, drunk driving, speeding, excessive aggression, and other unsafe habits are personal decisions (sure, they're incentivized and amplified by our shitty automobile-centric system) by which a driver chooses to make other people unsafe (with no care for their consent) to gain at best a marginal improvement in their own convenience.
'm not supporting this behavior and I am not asking for other people's support of the behavior I am simply stating the way it is in certain places at this time, and how that may have influenced this woman's behavior. Breaking certain traffic laws can become the driving culture in an area, and as such, not doing so can lead to accidents because other drivers will be expecting that behavior from you. The safest form of driving is when everyone knows why everyone else is going to do. The red light cameras didn't increase rear end collisions because they're bad, they increased rear end collisions because they caused behaviors that went against the accepted culture. The culture should change, I want the culture to change, but that involved short-term increases in collisions because other drivers were expecting the behavior of the previous culture. That is what I'm trying to express to you: this is not individual decision making this is a sociological, cultural decision that every driver in that area is making, and their split second decisions are based on that accepted culture.
Obviously something like drunk driving is not something every other person on the road is going to expect and your behavior while drunk driving is not going to be predictable, which is one of the many reasons it's incredibly unsafe.
so the objection here is not about running the red light and the dangerous part you mentioned is danger to herself because she's providing evidence then?
That's not what I said. In the event that the driving culture in the city (light timing, other drivers' expectations, etc) makes it so that you are encouraged to run a red light, do it in such a way as to minimize any danger to yourself and anyone around you. Quite frankly it's very possible that being on her phone was a more dangerous choice than running the red light.
This is asinine. The way you minmize danger to yourself and anyone around you is not running a red light. "My justified running red lights due to other driver expectations" vs. "Her obviously dangerous running red lights because I don't wanna wait" isn't even a false dichotomy, it's not even a dichotomy. That's the same thing except you figure it's fine when you do it.
what if idaho stop, but for cars?
In the city I used to work in, there were the number of accidents went up due to the city putting up red light cameras because the culture at the time was to run reds for a bit after the light changed. When they put up the cameras, people would slam on their brakes and get rear ended. Do not ever, EVER follow the law if other drivers are expecting you to break it. That is far more dangerous. If the speed limit is 35 and everyone is going 80, you need to match their speed or you risk someone no paying attention slamming into you. Same with stops, lights, etc. It comes down to the culture in the city.
It is dangerous to drive distracted. It is not dangerous, comparatively, to drive the exact same way everyone else does.
This is quite obviously not the fault of the red light cameras, it's the fault of people who don't know how to keep a safe distance to the car infront of them.
Sounds like maybe someone should do something about people doing 80 in a 35, distracted.
This entire line of argument is a race to the bottom, even for car drivers, nevermind anybody not inside a car who is far safer around somebody doing 35 than 80.
Car brain has spread even here. People convinced they can break all the rules because they understand the “culture” lmao. car brains are the ones creating this toxic dangerous “culture”
Moot.
Moot.
Moot.
It doesn't matter what driving should be like. This is what it is, and if you don't follow it then you are putting yourself and others in danger.
It's not an immuteable fact, you know? In fact, you could help change it by not blaming red light cameras for people being rear ended by people not keeping a safe distance
When did I blame the red light camera? When did I assign any qualitative attribute to anything at all?
Are you 13 or something? Live in a nice city with public transport? This is what driving is like. There is a sociological component to it, and in certain places it makes a more dangerous maneuver the safer option. I can tsk tsk other drivers in Boston or LA but it doesn't change reality. The people in these places have, collectively and unconsciously, chosen for this to be the way it works. I don't like it but outside of not driving in these places, there's not much I can do about it.
You could stop defending it as an immutable fact and calling people who question this 13 year olds
I am not defending anything? Why are you assigning any intent to my comments besides to give information? Driving in different cities requires understanding the cities culture. In some extreme cases, you have to break traffic laws because the actions of others will make adhering to those laws is the less safe option. I am not saying that it's a good thing or that it should stay that way, but it is the way it is at this time.
The purpose of traffic laws and enforcement is to kake things safer for people. If people are crashing over new enforcement policy, the moral choice for a city to make is to determine what will save the most lives. It's of no consequence to the city if they look at who caused the accident and they say "Guy in the back drove too close, lol, not our fault. Our laws are clear."
Yes, the trailing driver should leave space, but its the job of a traffic engineer to account for human variability and advise ways to minimize risk despite the tendency of some people to acy irrationally
Outside of a few specific places if we're talking car dominated societies this is demonstrably untrue, the point is to make it faster for people in cars, maybe a bit safer and the rest is at best an afterthought. If you wanted to make things safer for everybody, including people in cars, you'd see a lot less wide roads, more obstacles and such.
Again this is only looking at this in the context of cars and nothing else. What kills people when cars run red lights is sometimes cars, but most often people not in cars. And the latter is how the entire system is resolved and is what you're defending here - what's the other option? You can't actually enforce running red lights anymore?
Should be, sure, but that entire field basically runs on the fiction of the ever competent driver who doesn't fuck up. And anytime you try to change this people get up in arms because obviously they're the one person who doesn't make mistakes and as such would like to not be impeded
Then no one should be driving
Agreed. Individual vehicular transport is dangerous and inefficient.
is nigh infinitely better.
There are intersections that are so open and clear that you can ascertain with full certainty that there is NO risk to others.
you need all of 2 people thinking this and some unfortunate timing before they run into each other
A blank intersection with clear sightlines doesnt have 2 people
this is basically the infallible car driver fallacy again. This is inevitably going to fuck up while being entirely preventable. Eventually people get distracted, or someone rides around in the dark with broken or turned off lights, or maybe it's just a pedestrian, cyclist, scooter or motorcycle that the quick scan car drivers do just looks right past because it's not car and then somebody gets injured or hurt.