I've been toying with the idea that governmental control may be good-intentioned; however it has resulted in a lot of unintended consequences. A few years back, local government converted an intersection from a through street with cross street stops to a 4 way stop. This was in response to a few accidents that occurred in a short period of time. A good solution may have been to make the stop signs more prominent, since the original ones did not really stand out. Ok, now we have a situation where all parties assume that since everybody needs to stop, they can get away with blowing through - and now we have more fender benders there.

So - getting back to the point of this thread: Yes, running red lights can be dangerous, but based on the circumstances could be completely safe. I have seen folks do some wildly risky things and others that though are breaking laws are mitigating their risk through careful observation and evaluation. I would say that the folks in the first group may have learned their bad behavior through reinforcement. Just like at the 4-way stop, if you get away with blowing through lights enough times, your perception of risk is much reduced. In other words, your feeling of safety is reinforced by getting away with it enough times. This process has the additional effect of reducing your inclination or ability to do what the second group does: careful observation and evaluation of probably risk situations. Giving tickets does not change the thought behind the behavior - it's obvious that the guy with the tickets does not think he did anything wrong.

So - finally getting down to it: Why don't we free ourselves from all of the government-controlled mindless traffic intervention? By making every intersection of equal risk to all, folks will realize that driving and cycling do indeed require our attention and partnership to be efficient and effective. Yes, there will be a few incidents at first, but these will serve as positive reinforcement of actual risk. No longer will we be lulled into the false presumption of safety because of our reliance on non-thinking traffic control devices. We're all smarter than a red light, aren't we?

-G