I'm in no rush to be anywhere, anytime. If my caution and safety are a detriment to your schedule, that's your problem. Maybe you should leave with more time to get wherever you're going safely instead of trying to rush the yellow lights and put everyone else's lives at risk.
If you're going to fast to make a normal turn at the light, you're too close to that intersection to stop safely, and you should proceed without braking.
Yellow means it's turning red. Beyond that the safest way to treat it is how everyone else in the area treats it. It's like what I tell my stepson, it's better to be predictable than right. There's a lot of dead pedestrians and cyclists that had the right of way.
That is the key though. I see so many people treat the yellow light like “you must be at a stop before it turns red… right now” and slam on the brakes even though they could have made it through either at their current speed or slightly speeding up.
But instead they create a dangerous situation where the car behind them almost rear ends them.
Reacting and having to react are two different things. Just because I can react and stop in time, even quickly doesn’t mean you should be slamming on your brakes like an idiot just because the light is yellow.
As much as it can suck, in that situation it's best to hang further back to increase visibility. You should be far enough back that you can see the light before entering the intersection.
I drive a subcompact so this is my daily life living in an area full of brodozers and semis.
Do people honk at me? Yup. But I haven't ran a red light yet, I see it all the time from people following too close to some huge truck that ran it too.
So now you’ve completely ignored the “if you can” part of your own statement and are implying that you must come to a stop on a yellow.
What I am saying is that if you’re slamming on your brakes at a yellow you’re doing it wrong and in the process creating a potentially dangerous situation for others.
If you are at a point where you feel the need to slam on your brakes, the correct action is to continue through the intersection. Someone else mentioned that red light cameras are a big source of blame and I agree with what because they’re probably thinking “oh no! Red light equals instant ticket!”
you’ve completely ignored the “if you can” part of your own statement
you're replying to a different person.....
either way, it doesn't matter. If I have to slam on my brakes and you're following too close for safety..... that's a you problem. Riding my ass doesn't make the limit faster.
Lots of cities like to kill people by making their yellow lights short. There is no standard for yellow light timing. They have been getting longer which I like, along with all red periods.
Only if the light timings are such that stopping in time is difficult. Which I know is the case in some shitty places, but it's the fault of the timings, not the cameras.
It's a once burned, twice shy sort of thing where even if people are technically ok to continue through they might really (ironically) air on the side of caution and aggressively stop to avoid that red light ticket.
Never mind some municipalities were caught shortening the yellow light timings specifically to aid the red light cameras in ticketing more people.
What? No. It has nothing to do with the timing. You could give 12 seconds yellow lights, plenty enough time to get through, but as soon as you put up a camera, some jackass is still going to come to a complete stop rather than risk the possibility of a camera catching them "running" a red light.
It has nothing to do with the timing of the lights, and everything to do with the psychology of people being recorded.
If it lasts 12 seconds, you have 12 seconds between the light turning amber and it turning red. No-one is slamming on the moment it turns to amber, because no-one believes they will blast through it if they continue at that point. There is no risk, so the psychology of people can't make them avoid the risk.
You're assuming you know how long it lasts, as does everyone else on the road. That is an exceptionally poor assumption. You can't make that assumption simply because you set the timing on your traffic light to 12 seconds of yellow. To make that assumption, every driver who sees your traffic light must not have ever seen any traffic light with a shorter yellow. One driver whose home town used 3-second yellow lights and red light cameras is not going to know you use 12-second yellows, and he's going to slam on his brakes as soon as they come on. Your 12-second drivers behind him are going to be forced to panic stop because of him.
If his home town used 3-second yellows without traffic cameras, without excessive enforcement, he's going to roll through anyway. He's not going to slam on his brakes
I was approaching an intersection and someone made their left slowly in front of me causing me to slow down as I approached and I kept going cause it was turning yellow and could still make it and got honked like hell.
Next day I saw a light turning yellow well ahead of me so I applied the brake early because it's like a 70(km/h) to signal that I'm going to stop and then stopped before crossing. The person behind me didn't anticipate that and turned at the last second to just miss rear-ending me. My brake lights were active for a hell of a long time so I'm not sure what they were doing.
I say both of these stories because I hate driving in general....
I have been an aggressive driver in the past, but I've gotta say that some serious time in developing nations has really chilled me the fuck out.
One coworker said his commute was his favourite time of day, because he just putters along at 20mph on his scooter and feels at peace with the world ... I could use that in my life :-)
Because you don't know when exactly the red will come, so you might blast through on red, which should be obvious enough as to why it's dangerous.
The point of amber/yellow lights is a signal to stop that you can ignore without risk if it's already too late to stop, as opposed to reds which are the actual protection against conflict. Is that not fucking obvious?
The state of the LEDs doesn't mean anything for safety. It is however dangerous to impede on opposing traffic's right of way. Reds don't provide protection, it's just a clear signal for right of way. It's also dangerous AF to drive assuming green lights give protection. It's just right of way.
It doesn't necessarily risk lives. "Running red" is dependent on the state of some LEDs. It's dangerous to impede the right of way of a vehicle traveling at high speeds. It's much less dangerous to run a red that's been red for one second rather than, say, 15.
There is an anecdote about my oldest brother. He said to another kid "green is go, red is stop and yellow is go very fast". Guess they learn from what we do, not what we tell them to do.
The belief in American Exceptionalism isn't exclusive to how we perceive ourselves on the global stage. It's just as potent domestically within our society. We inherently see ourselves as better than any and all plebeian NPCs around us and above any rules established to keep our communities safe. It's the definition of toxic individualism and the single most deadly sin of American society.
This isn’t the real crime. The real crime is going slow enough we both could have made it, then accelerating when you see it turn yellow so only you get through the light.
something like: "Both of them could have make it at 40km/h but the Huy in front was driving at 30 km/h and just accelerated at 60km/h when they noticed the yellow light and only them made it on time"
If I see you compromising public safety because you think you're above the rules we set in place to keep our communities safe, then I'm calling you worse things than thundertwat.
Yellow means stop if you can. It's not permission to drive recklessly in order to save yourself a minute of time.
Yellow lights are for 3-6 seconds. That's also around the time it takes to come to a stop, depending on the speed of the vehicle. And you should give the vehicle ahead of you about 3 seconds of lead time. So if they have enough time to stop before reaching the intersection, you almost certainly wouldn't have had enough time to follow them through while it's still yellow unless they slammed their brakes or you are riding their ass.
"you could have stopped but didn't" vs "you should have already been stopped but weren't"
Basically, when you come to a yellow light, there are two ways you can look at the situation: "can I safely stop before reaching the intersection?" or "can I make it through the intersection before the light turns red?" The idea behind "yellow running" regulations is that drivers should be asking themselves the first question, not the second.
How the fuck does a court much less a cop make that determination? As long as they're going at or under the speed limit I see no problem with "running" yellows.
My understanding is that, at least where applicable in the US, it's pretty rare to get a ticket for running a yellow. So it might be one of those things that never actually comes up, or only when part of another charge.
Ok now how do we factor in reaction times? Should drivers be expected to keep their eye on the LED instead of checking if anyone on an opposing direction is going to run the red light instead?
A standard generous reaction time is part of your standard stopping distance. Did you not learn this as part of learning to drive?
Yes, you should be watching for traffic lights changing as you drive.
I see I shouldn't be asking if you learnt this, because you obviously never venture out from underneath your bridge except to eat passersby and be a pillock on the internet.
No amount of drivers ed and giving people tickets will stop people from running fresh reds, even accidentally. The only things that help with the consequences is making people understand this, raising intersections, and longer all red periods.
My point is that blindly teaching drivers about traffic rules makes them extremely unprepared for the reality of driving. I've run red lights accidentally many times. It happens. I've precented collisions by LOOKING AT THE ROAD and knowing when a driver is going to run a yellow or red when I'm turning left/stealing the intersection. You're treating every red light run the same. It's like saying speeding on the freeway by 15mph is just as dangerous as speeding by 15mph on surface streets. The latter is MUCH more dangerous by like, at least two factors of 10.
With red, the context doesn't matter. You run a red light, you get fined. With yellow, the context does matter: you only get fined if you clearly could've come to a stop safely, but didn't.
The severity of the fine also differs (talking about Germany here). If you run a red light you get at least one "point", which is a semi-permanent mark on your record that will lead to more severe punishment if you rack up too many of them. If you endangered someone, caused an accident, or the light was red for more than a second, you also get your driver's license taken away for a month. You don't get any of that with a yellow light, and the monetary fine is also much lower.
Nah fuck you, most of you are gonna end up sitting on social media scrolling some shorts so think about that when you break the law so you can watch two more shorts while risking to kill people, and just so you know I can see you cursing me in the mirror and I'm cursing you too, ugly ass bitch.
The more time I spend on the internet after having been to the USA, the better I understand why so many cars over there have massive fucking dents in them.
I wish my dent was from me doing something dumb. I just came out of work at my old retail job and suddenly there was a massive dent in my passenger side door with the mirror pushed in. They just hit it and took off while I was working.
Yeah the only time you're not supposed to stop on yellow is if it comes on while you're too close to stop safely, it's still a stop signal, it's just the one that gives you a margin if you're already going. Also you should be preparing to stop at traffic lights anyway. If it stays green then great.
I know the legal meaning of a yellow light varies from place to place, but the effective meaning of traffic lights is:
Red: You shouldn't be in the intersection. You must not find yourself in the intersection, because other traffic/pedestrians/etc are doing so, and if you're in the intersection, you're creating a safety problem.
Yellow: a Red is imminent. You should take whatever steps are safe to ensure that you will not be in the intersection when the light turns red. If that means you need to drive through to get clear, then if the path is clear, do so. If that means instead you need to stop and you can safely do so, do that.
Green: you can go straight through; if you're turning in a legal direction, you can do so after safely yielding.
Yes! Just fucking go! I'm trying to get somewhere. And if you're one of the sibling comments talking about public safety, we can be safe and still make the light without speeding up. That's why we have yellow so people don't have to brake hard.
A surprising number of people here don't seem to understand that you can coast without being a dick. No one said to press the gas peddle. They said you might not need to brake.
I'm in no rush to be anywhere, anytime. If my caution and safety are a detriment to your schedule, that's your problem. Maybe you should leave with more time to get wherever you're going safely instead of trying to rush the yellow lights and put everyone else's lives at risk.
This. Yellow means stop if you can (edit: if you can safely)
Yellow means stop if you can... do so safely.
If you're going to fast to make a normal turn at the light, you're too close to that intersection to stop safely, and you should proceed without braking.
Yes that's what I meant as well. I'll edit to make it clear.
Yellow means it's turning red. Beyond that the safest way to treat it is how everyone else in the area treats it. It's like what I tell my stepson, it's better to be predictable than right. There's a lot of dead pedestrians and cyclists that had the right of way.
Agreed that predictability is the priority on the road. But people shouldn't be expecting everyone to rush through yellows with disregard either.
As a driver should be expecting it, but not upset when they don’t.
As a pedestrian you have to expect it, and be pleasantly surprised when they do.
That is the key though. I see so many people treat the yellow light like “you must be at a stop before it turns red… right now” and slam on the brakes even though they could have made it through either at their current speed or slightly speeding up.
But instead they create a dangerous situation where the car behind them almost rear ends them.
you need to be keeping a safer distance if you can't safely react to an emergency break in front of you m8
Reacting and having to react are two different things. Just because I can react and stop in time, even quickly doesn’t mean you should be slamming on your brakes like an idiot just because the light is yellow.
Both of you got the same information, you both see the yellow light. Don't expect cars in front to not break on a yellow
The fun part is when both of you don't... because you're in a sedan 4 car lengths back from a jacked up FU Freedumb truck and can't see the light.
As much as it can suck, in that situation it's best to hang further back to increase visibility. You should be far enough back that you can see the light before entering the intersection.
I drive a subcompact so this is my daily life living in an area full of brodozers and semis.
Do people honk at me? Yup. But I haven't ran a red light yet, I see it all the time from people following too close to some huge truck that ran it too.
So now you’ve completely ignored the “if you can” part of your own statement and are implying that you must come to a stop on a yellow.
What I am saying is that if you’re slamming on your brakes at a yellow you’re doing it wrong and in the process creating a potentially dangerous situation for others.
If you are at a point where you feel the need to slam on your brakes, the correct action is to continue through the intersection. Someone else mentioned that red light cameras are a big source of blame and I agree with what because they’re probably thinking “oh no! Red light equals instant ticket!”
you're replying to a different person.....
either way, it doesn't matter. If I have to slam on my brakes and you're following too close for safety..... that's a you problem. Riding my ass doesn't make the limit faster.
That dangerous situation is created by the following driver and their failure to maintain a safe following distance
If you need to speed up to make it through, you were either going too fast or could have stopped. Which is it?
Lots of cities like to kill people by making their yellow lights short. There is no standard for yellow light timing. They have been getting longer which I like, along with all red periods.
Not in my country.
Good for you
Red light cameras are partly to blame; it makes people more afraid to safely clear the intersection instead of slamming on the brakes
Only if the light timings are such that stopping in time is difficult. Which I know is the case in some shitty places, but it's the fault of the timings, not the cameras.
It's a once burned, twice shy sort of thing where even if people are technically ok to continue through they might really (ironically) air on the side of caution and aggressively stop to avoid that red light ticket.
Never mind some municipalities were caught shortening the yellow light timings specifically to aid the red light cameras in ticketing more people.
What? No. It has nothing to do with the timing. You could give 12 seconds yellow lights, plenty enough time to get through, but as soon as you put up a camera, some jackass is still going to come to a complete stop rather than risk the possibility of a camera catching them "running" a red light.
It has nothing to do with the timing of the lights, and everything to do with the psychology of people being recorded.
If it lasts 12 seconds, you have 12 seconds between the light turning amber and it turning red. No-one is slamming on the moment it turns to amber, because no-one believes they will blast through it if they continue at that point. There is no risk, so the psychology of people can't make them avoid the risk.
The timings are inseparable.
You're assuming you know how long it lasts, as does everyone else on the road. That is an exceptionally poor assumption. You can't make that assumption simply because you set the timing on your traffic light to 12 seconds of yellow. To make that assumption, every driver who sees your traffic light must not have ever seen any traffic light with a shorter yellow. One driver whose home town used 3-second yellow lights and red light cameras is not going to know you use 12-second yellows, and he's going to slam on his brakes as soon as they come on. Your 12-second drivers behind him are going to be forced to panic stop because of him.
If his home town used 3-second yellows without traffic cameras, without excessive enforcement, he's going to roll through anyway. He's not going to slam on his brakes
I had two different instances of a yellow light.
I was approaching an intersection and someone made their left slowly in front of me causing me to slow down as I approached and I kept going cause it was turning yellow and could still make it and got honked like hell.
Next day I saw a light turning yellow well ahead of me so I applied the brake early because it's like a 70(km/h) to signal that I'm going to stop and then stopped before crossing. The person behind me didn't anticipate that and turned at the last second to just miss rear-ending me. My brake lights were active for a hell of a long time so I'm not sure what they were doing.
I say both of these stories because I hate driving in general....
I have been an aggressive driver in the past, but I've gotta say that some serious time in developing nations has really chilled me the fuck out.
One coworker said his commute was his favourite time of day, because he just putters along at 20mph on his scooter and feels at peace with the world ... I could use that in my life :-)
How does rushing yellows put people's lives at risk, exactly?
Because you don't know when exactly the red will come, so you might blast through on red, which should be obvious enough as to why it's dangerous.
The point of amber/yellow lights is a signal to stop that you can ignore without risk if it's already too late to stop, as opposed to reds which are the actual protection against conflict. Is that not fucking obvious?
The state of the LEDs doesn't mean anything for safety. It is however dangerous to impede on opposing traffic's right of way. Reds don't provide protection, it's just a clear signal for right of way. It's also dangerous AF to drive assuming green lights give protection. It's just right of way.
Do you think running reds doesn't risk lives then, wise -ass?
It doesn't necessarily risk lives. "Running red" is dependent on the state of some LEDs. It's dangerous to impede the right of way of a vehicle traveling at high speeds. It's much less dangerous to run a red that's been red for one second rather than, say, 15.
Driving itself risks lives.
I think we're done here. Don't drive.
At least in my country and I suspect many others, yellow / amber mean "stop if it's safe to do so", effectively the same as a red light.
"Green means go, Yellow means go faster" was the mantra for our instructor.
green means go ahead.... yellow means hold on.... and red means where tf did you get that banana?
Red means you can stop wiping
but the shame is there all the same
https://youtu.be/nBEoH06WoQ8
FYI now YouTube embeds your account in the link if you don't remove the tracking part (?is=....). So you can doxx yourself by accident.
It’s a line from Pauly Shore in Encino Man.
It long predates Encino Man
I didn’t realize that driving instructor was such an influence on Mr Shore.
That's the same everywhere
Here driver's ed taught
green = go red = stop Yellow = proceed with caution
Not that it's the rule I follow, but that's what gets drilled into kids heads.
The advent of red light cameras turned yellow into "Can I safely stop without being plowed by a jacked up SUV/Pickup?"
There is an anecdote about my oldest brother. He said to another kid "green is go, red is stop and yellow is go very fast". Guess they learn from what we do, not what we tell them to do.
Ah yes let's teach new drivers that green light means go without any nuance about red light running.
The belief in American Exceptionalism isn't exclusive to how we perceive ourselves on the global stage. It's just as potent domestically within our society. We inherently see ourselves as better than any and all plebeian NPCs around us and above any rules established to keep our communities safe. It's the definition of toxic individualism and the single most deadly sin of American society.
Yellow means stop; but you don't get a fine in case you can't stop safely.
Red means stop; if you're in the intersection for even 1/100th of a second you can get fined.
Funnily enough you do get a fine over here, if the police catch you and it would've been safe to stop.
It's a whopping 10€.
I'll never understand what part of driving a 2-ton metal machine makes people think you're an asshole for not doing it recklessly enough
This isn’t the real crime. The real crime is going slow enough we both could have made it, then accelerating when you see it turn yellow so only you get through the light.
I don't get it. If both of you would have made it at a slower speed, how does accelerating mean only the front vehicle now does?
something like: "Both of them could have make it at 40km/h but the Huy in front was driving at 30 km/h and just accelerated at 60km/h when they noticed the yellow light and only them made it on time"
Implication is if they were going at the final speed they ended up at the whole time, both could have got through.
acceleration is just a change in velocity. Perhaps they meant a negative acceleration.
If I see you compromising public safety because you think you're above the rules we set in place to keep our communities safe, then I'm calling you worse things than thundertwat.
Yellow means stop if you can. It's not permission to drive recklessly in order to save yourself a minute of time.
Also, that red light camera over there has a hair trigger.
Yellow lights are for 3-6 seconds. That's also around the time it takes to come to a stop, depending on the speed of the vehicle. And you should give the vehicle ahead of you about 3 seconds of lead time. So if they have enough time to stop before reaching the intersection, you almost certainly wouldn't have had enough time to follow them through while it's still yellow unless they slammed their brakes or you are riding their ass.
The universal opposition to running yellow lights in these comments is hilariously awesome.
Makes me happy.
Absolutely no need to rush and drive recklessly to save 1-2 minutes on your commute.
Yeah fuck safety!
Nice try, Liza. Fuck your car in particular
I ride a motorcycle. I hate those who pass by me when I stop yellow
I think there's an easy solution to that problem.
You mean like this?
If you think you made it, it's just because you couldn't see the stoplight turning red just as you entered the crossroads
I'd double-check your local traffic regulations; there are places where you can get written a ticket for running a yellow light.
Holy shit, then what's the difference in those places between a red light and a yellow light?
"you could have stopped but didn't" vs "you should have already been stopped but weren't"
Basically, when you come to a yellow light, there are two ways you can look at the situation: "can I safely stop before reaching the intersection?" or "can I make it through the intersection before the light turns red?" The idea behind "yellow running" regulations is that drivers should be asking themselves the first question, not the second.
How the fuck does a court much less a cop make that determination? As long as they're going at or under the speed limit I see no problem with "running" yellows.
My understanding is that, at least where applicable in the US, it's pretty rare to get a ticket for running a yellow. So it might be one of those things that never actually comes up, or only when part of another charge.
My only guess would be something like "speeding in order to pass through a traffic signal"
If you were significantly more than your stopping distance in front of the light when it changed, you should stop - if you didn't, you're liable.
Ok now how do we factor in reaction times? Should drivers be expected to keep their eye on the LED instead of checking if anyone on an opposing direction is going to run the red light instead?
A standard generous reaction time is part of your standard stopping distance. Did you not learn this as part of learning to drive?
Yes, you should be watching for traffic lights changing as you drive.
I see I shouldn't be asking if you learnt this, because you obviously never venture out from underneath your bridge except to eat passersby and be a pillock on the internet.
No amount of drivers ed and giving people tickets will stop people from running fresh reds, even accidentally. The only things that help with the consequences is making people understand this, raising intersections, and longer all red periods.
People say "stopping distance" with many different definitions all the time. Also it's different per state.
My point is that blindly teaching drivers about traffic rules makes them extremely unprepared for the reality of driving. I've run red lights accidentally many times. It happens. I've precented collisions by LOOKING AT THE ROAD and knowing when a driver is going to run a yellow or red when I'm turning left/stealing the intersection. You're treating every red light run the same. It's like saying speeding on the freeway by 15mph is just as dangerous as speeding by 15mph on surface streets. The latter is MUCH more dangerous by like, at least two factors of 10.
With red, the context doesn't matter. You run a red light, you get fined. With yellow, the context does matter: you only get fined if you clearly could've come to a stop safely, but didn't.
The severity of the fine also differs (talking about Germany here). If you run a red light you get at least one "point", which is a semi-permanent mark on your record that will lead to more severe punishment if you rack up too many of them. If you endangered someone, caused an accident, or the light was red for more than a second, you also get your driver's license taken away for a month. You don't get any of that with a yellow light, and the monetary fine is also much lower.
Safety first. Seethe.
If you plant your front bumper up their tailpipe and floor it, you can both make it.
You're welcome.
Do you pay my insurance? No? Then get fucked.
Nah fuck you, most of you are gonna end up sitting on social media scrolling some shorts so think about that when you break the law so you can watch two more shorts while risking to kill people, and just so you know I can see you cursing me in the mirror and I'm cursing you too, ugly ass bitch.
Bah! You'll be fine, just speed to the next light.
How long does a stop light take? Three minutes? Look at your damn phone, that's all you're going to do when you get wherever you're going, anyway.
Slowing early for a potential yellow-light and stopping as needed is the :3 of driving tho.
I identify as a motherfucking thundertwat
Cunt is gender neutral.
The more time I spend on the internet after having been to the USA, the better I understand why so many cars over there have massive fucking dents in them.
I wish my dent was from me doing something dumb. I just came out of work at my old retail job and suddenly there was a massive dent in my passenger side door with the mirror pushed in. They just hit it and took off while I was working.
If you are driving a BMW, mercedes, or Tesla, I'm 100% going to stop at yellow and stay 2 points below the speed limit if you are behind me.
this is why I sold my bmw and got a Peugeot ...
But now I have the issue where all the pickup truck drivers get offended when I overtake them
:D
Yellow doesnt mean speed up, its means stop. If you drive like an asshole, call me whatever you want. I dont care what assholes think of me.
But... But but but but.....
Why don't you want to get T-boned for my convenience...?
Yeah the only time you're not supposed to stop on yellow is if it comes on while you're too close to stop safely, it's still a stop signal, it's just the one that gives you a margin if you're already going. Also you should be preparing to stop at traffic lights anyway. If it stays green then great.
I know the legal meaning of a yellow light varies from place to place, but the effective meaning of traffic lights is:
Red: You shouldn't be in the intersection. You must not find yourself in the intersection, because other traffic/pedestrians/etc are doing so, and if you're in the intersection, you're creating a safety problem.
Yellow: a Red is imminent. You should take whatever steps are safe to ensure that you will not be in the intersection when the light turns red. If that means you need to drive through to get clear, then if the path is clear, do so. If that means instead you need to stop and you can safely do so, do that.
Green: you can go straight through; if you're turning in a legal direction, you can do so after safely yielding.
Dictating pronouns is a bizarre level of social control.
Yes! Just fucking go! I'm trying to get somewhere. And if you're one of the sibling comments talking about public safety, we can be safe and still make the light without speeding up. That's why we have yellow so people don't have to brake hard.
A surprising number of people here don't seem to understand that you can coast without being a dick. No one said to press the gas peddle. They said you might not need to brake.
ITT a bunch of walkmaxxing europoors speculating on what it's like to drive