I regularly stop at red lights with cars all around me, including behind me. I take up the whole lane so I am more visible and cannot be (easily and legally) passed. When the light changes, I get off to a good start, and usually am well through the intersection before the cars get going faster than I am (usually around 20 MPH at that point), at which point I move back over to the right. I've only ever had one near accident, and I dare say I'd have had more by now if I didn't follow any rules.

manumission, please clarify. I don't think you're advocating total anarchy, are you? I'm assuming you are advocating that bikes not need to follow car rules, but should have some guidelines of their own, which you feel are better suited to them. Problem is, how do drivers know what your rules are, and thus what to expect from bikes? I agree with the "rules" crowd that predictability, though perhaps boring, is one of the greatest contributers to being safe. It may not be a great contributor to delivering a message in the quickest possible time, but frankly, I'm not a messenger and that's not my aim. I work in an office job and my aim to get to work and back safely on my bike, in a reasonable time, but not at the sacrifice of my safety.

It's no doubt true that the traffic system was designed around cars. That's reality. Rebelling against it might raise some awareness, or it might just piss people off at cyclists. Ignoring it might benefit an individual cyclist much of the time, but at a cost to the perception of cycling as a whole, and probably a cost to the safety of that cyclist eventually. In my opinion.

Bottom line is I follows the same laws because I believe it's the safest option, not out of some ideological position. (And yes, I do make exceptions when I believe it is safe to, which usually means no one else around.)