Take a look at this video....[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qvXbIenivk [/media]&has_verified=1

I have come to the habit of waiting, sometimes up to 10 seconds when MY light turns green. I often see cars approaching a red light (intersection) and they don't seem to be slowing down. It's amazing to see that a lot of these accidents could have been avoided if the other driver just waited a moment, and made sure everyone who is supposed to stop, stopped.

 

I always wait to see it the cars are at least slowing (not stopped) when coming to a situation like that. Some of those situations though, I would probably have expected since 2 lanes have stopped, the third would have, so I guess I would have gotten smashed in a few of them too.

I don't know if this is taught in driving school, but in motorcycle driving school, they teach a good amount of paranoia when on the road. I think that every person that gets their license should be required to ride a motorcycle for a years before getting in a car. They teach you to be fearful and careful while on the road.

 

Seriously have seen too many holy crap moments right in front of me. It is a habit like breathing to see light turn green...then look left, right, left before going. Freakin' tards.

 

WTF were some of those people thinking? I generally don't like the idea of red light cameras, but if they clearly document the negligence and get people's licenses revoked, then I'm all for it. It's like having an unsecured firearm and "accidentally" shooting an innocent bystander.

 

And all of those accidents could have been avoided if the drivers had actually been paying attention to what they're doing. There are way too many stupid people driving our streets.

 

When I'm waiting at a red-light, I am usually watching the cross-street light out of the corner of my eye, and when it turns yellow, I'm ready to roll out. Sometimes, I'm moving before my light turns green.

4 times out of 10, I'll double-check cross traffic to make sure they're stopping. 3 times out of 10, I'll depend on the traffic beside me to run interference and keep any cross-traffic from hitting me, if someone were to run a red. But, yeah, the other 3 times, I'm an open target. So far, I've been lucky, though.

 

People just need to pay attention, IMO. Though apparently it's hard enough as it is to simply operate a vehicle.

One time I was cruising up PCH and had an SUV behind me. I came up on a yellow light and started to slow down. I've gotten into the habit of checking other cars at stop signs, left turns, behind me when I'm coming to a stop, etc and was watching the SUV in my rear view. He looked to be going way too fast to stop in time so I let off the brake and ended up with most of my car past the line just so the guy would have enough space to stop (which he barely did). Thankfully it was a massive "T" intersection do I didn't have to worry about getting into cross traffic.

 

I usually don't, but I made it a habit to stay observant of my surroundings. Like Fishfryer said, people should take a motorcycle class. Licenses are given away here, not earned. If they were earned, we'd see less videos like that.

 

i always look both ways before going on a green. people push redlights way to far. my father taught me at a young age, you can be right by going on the green light, but you would be dead right. he always said look both ways, make sure no asshole is running the light, then go.

i cringe when i see people time the green light as they come up to it so they can just keep going.

 

Like others here, I will generally look to make sure that no one's speeding trying to beat the red light before I go.

But honestly, I'm not sure that I would have avoided most of those.

I'm curious how many of those cars were on their cellphone babbling away at the time of the accident.