Late night driviing and red lights / stop signs

[Plow]

Traffic laws are put into place to reduce your chance of an accident. While I doubt your actions are any more dangerous then speeding 5-10 km over the speed limit you are training yourself to use bad driving. In all likelihood you'd be the one hit by a speeder. If you were in the intersection during a red light, if they have cameras you're most likely fucked.

Actually it's much more dangerous than slight speeding. Speed, within reasonable measures, is almost never the cause of an accident. (By reasonable numbers I'm not talking about a skater jackass driving his Porsche 150 mph while getting road head). You're more likely to cause an accident going 10 under while everyone else is going 0-5 over than by simply driving a couple mph over all the time.

I roll through stop signs if I know the area well and there's no one around, but I always stop and wait for lights. It just feels weird going through lights when they're red, even if they're set to flashing (which means treat them as a stop sign). Only exception is right turns, but that's legal. I know I could go through a red light at 4 AM and cause no one harm and probably even get away with it, but like I said, it just feels weird.

Right turn on red is a stop sign. You still have to come to a complete stop at or before the stop line for it to be legal.


As to the whole general concept of the thread... if you're not a defensive driver, you're stupid, and that's all there is to it.

[Scythiroth]

I would treat red lights as stop signs late enough at night, but where I live, there are generally still a decent amount of cars driving around at any hours. So, it would really depend on the area.

Stop signs... no real reason to not "stop", takes 2 seconds to look both ways. I generally don't fully stop at most stop signs though. I'd rather not endanger lives to save a few seconds.

[Takedown3]

not going to be surprised when several BGers eventually die when they get tboned

[Ksandra]

Actually it's much more dangerous than slight speeding. Speed, within reasonable measures, is almost never the cause of an accident. (By reasonable numbers I'm not talking about a skater jackass driving his Porsche 150 mph while getting road head).

err I'd kinda wanna see the recipes on this statement.

http://www.edgarsnyder.com/car-accident/statistics.html

National Car Accident Statistics (2009)

There were more than 5.5 million car accidents in the United States. Nearly 31,000 were fatal, and more than 2 million people were injured.
The majority of fatal crashes involved only one vehicle (61 percent).
Nearly half of all fatal crashes occurred on roads with posted speed limits of 55 mph or higher.
The deadliest month for car crashes was August. More than 2,864 fatal crashes occurred in 2009.
Most crashes happened between 5 and 5:59 p.m. on weekdays, and between 2 and 2:59 a.m. on weekends.
Motor vehicle crashes were the leading cause of death for children and teenagers.
At any given moment, 812,000 vehicles were being driven by someone using a handheld cell phone in the U.S.
An average of four children ages 14 and under were killed every day in auto accidents. Nearly 500 were injured daily.
While statistics continue to improve, 32 percent of fatal accidents involved alcohol-impaired drivers.
About 31 percent of fatalities were caused by speeding (10,591).

I kinda doubt 31% of the people were driving 150 or w/e.

Also the first bold part is another thing. It is also about how severe the accident can be. Lower speeds may not actually prevent an accident from happening, but it can make it so the accident causes less injuries.

The prime times are also interesting since OP was talking about breaking the law at night. on weekends most crashes happen between 2-3 am.

[Qalbert]

err I'd kinda wanna see the recipes on this statement.

got food on the mind?

[miokomioko]

It's depressing how many people are this stupid on a regular basis. I sure am glad I get to share the road with people that can justify their regular running of stops signs and red lights at night.

Also, telling a cop it's stupid that it's illegal to run them at night because you're tired? Maybe it was stupid to drive while you're tired... maybe?

[aurik]

Dumb as a pail of rocks.

Enjoy your increased likelihood of traumatic injury because you want to be home at 2:05am instead of 2:06am.

[Ksandra]

got food on the mind?

LOL oops.

[oldoldman]

You can look to see if there are any cars coming before blowing a stop sign but all it takes is one pedestrian for you to be facing vehicular manslaughter. Stop when you're god damn supposed to.

[Plow]

err I'd kinda wanna see the recipes on this statement.

http://www.edgarsnyder.com/car-accident/statistics.html


I kinda doubt 31% of the people were driving 150 or w/e.

Also the first bold part is another thing. It is also about how severe the accident can be. Lower speeds may not actually prevent an accident from happening, but it can make it so the accident causes less injuries.

The prime times are also interesting since OP was talking about breaking the law at night. on weekends most crashes happen between 2-3 am.

5.5m accidents, and half of the 30k that were fatal being speed related means something?

Sigh, I'm so sick of sourcing common knowledge.

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications...speedincidence that should take you directly to the part that shows it's essentially a U, i.e. you get higher crash rates, and about the same ratio, whether moving above or below the speed limit. The U is actually slightly tilted showing higher likelihood with going slower than faster.

Read farther on and you'll find that most accidents related to speed are not attributed to such on the basis of speed limit, but on going too fast in poor road conditions.

Do I need to link the shit showing that raising speed limits has no negative effect and lowering them has no positive effect, too, or have you at least seen that much?

[NynJa]

dont lower speed limits -.- I was driving down one of the more busier streets, which has a limit of 50 km/h, I'm behind some fuckbag whos barely going 30. I finally get to pass him, and low and behold he's some old crippled bastard who's head is dangling like stephen hawkings. THAT almost caused a shitton of accidents. Going below the limit is not safe nor cautious, it shows you're a bloody vagina who does not belong on the road, and is a LOT more of a general threat than me who slows but coasts through stop signs and red lights at 2-4 am, because people are expecting others to be driving at the speed limit.

[NynJa]

Red lights are a different story. In my opinion, you're practicing bad driving and after running x amount of red lights you are y% more likely to drive through a yellow/red light in traffic when you're coming in fast and have a moment to decide to stop or go. Aside from the fact that some lights are also in areas you can't reliably tell if someone else is on the road with you.

I'll be glad to post some pictures of stop signs and red lights I've burned when I get a chance.


heres what I can give you for now
http://maps.google.com/?ll=45.474415...23.06,,0,27.73

That empty lane to the left of the minivan would be me. If you start looking to your right, you'd notice that you can see a good 1000 yards down the road to incoming traffic that might hit you. There is no traffic from the left lane that can interfere with you, and there is no traffic from the right lane either as it can only go one way. The only cars that could possibly hit you are cars you are cars coming from the opposite direction which you can see from 1000 yards away.

That's just one example.

[NynJa]

Also, telling a cop it's stupid that it's illegal to run them at night because you're tired? Maybe it was stupid to drive while you're tired... maybe?

ITT: People who are making shit up as stuff that was said in this thread?
When did I tell a cop this?

Theres a lot of false allegations going on in here lol. If I get caught doing what I do by a cop, I wont contest the ticket, I know full well I'm burning these lights/stops, its a risk I take. Though it should be worth noting that all this stop/accelerate is also using up more gas.

[Qalbert]

And that's valuable pocket change he needs for his poker games.

[miokomioko]

ITT: People who are making shit up as stuff that was said in this thread?
When did I tell a cop this?

Theres a lot of false allegations going on in here lol. If I get caught doing what I do by a cop, I wont contest the ticket, I know full well I'm burning these lights/stops, its a risk I take. Though it should be worth noting that all this stop/accelerate is also using up more gas.

Ahem...

However, if I got pulled over I would not hesitate to tell the cop it's stupid to wait at a red light when no one is clearly coming while I'm falling asleep at 2am + hours and that he is even more of an idiot for pulling me over when no one was in any danger at all.

[Jememy]

I guess red lights don't have cameras in Qc? In BC you fucking run a red on the wrong street ICBC will fine the shit outta you.

[NynJa]

Sorry, thought you were referencing me

Some reds have cameras, but the only problem is they put them on streets that are generally always going to have traffic, and they warn the shit out of you that theyre there. Same with the speed cameras...so people drive 100-110 on the highway, then slow down to 70 where the cameras are, then speed back up to 100-110.

[Thunder]

I'll be glad to post some pictures of stop signs and red lights I've burned when I get a chance.

Yeah, I can see why you'd feel tempted to drive through red lights like that. You'll definitely never hit someone, or have someone hit you. All you're doing is risking a ticket at that point. But I do still think you're subconsciously undermining red lights and are more prone to trying to drive through them(in the case of you're driving at a yellow light and speed up instead of slowing down) in traffic. Someone said earlier that they feel weird thinking about going when they're at a red light, and that's a good thing, you might not feel the same way after rolling through those.

But I still think you're sacrificing 0 security when you just slow down at stop signs where you can see oncoming traffic. Never just blast through them though, and always stop and look around at intersections that are obstructed.

[Judai]

People like the OP are why I stop at red lights and stop signs in the middle of night. I too have hit someone because they didn't care to wait for the light to change. They weren't drunk, they just didn't give a shit and didn't want to stop and somehow didn't even see me on a well lit street with my lights on. Nobody died but the person sitting in the backseat of their car was pretty messed up, since that was where I hit.

It's just fucking stupid to drive like a retard to save a few minutes. Is 5 minutes really worth your life? someone's life? totaling your car? Maybe you don't do it when drunk but some other idiot could be out there with no lights on while drunk and hit you too. Way too many stupid drivers in the MD/DC/VA area for me to run lights and stop signs but obviously some of those idiots have posted here. I don't even run the stop signs in my neighborhood, ever.

[tonyg]

It should be noted that the area Nynja is talking about (Montreal) had the average street speed reduced from 50km/h to 40km/h in 1 lane streets, and from 70km/h to 50km/h in 2-3-4 lane streets. We also have a lot of areas in Montreal where it's completely inoccupied past 2-3 AM (I usually close the bar between 3 to 5AM and sometimes I can do the whole 8km drive back home without ever encountering another person driving, and I work downtown). While I don't run stops or red lights, I can understand how some people could, since the only thing stopping me is some cop giving me a 180$ ticket, essentially negating my whole income from my work shift. I've driven in more densely populated areas like Toronto and I can safely say running lights there would be suicidal, but unless you're on one of the 3 most crowded streets in Montreal, you could drive by all the stops without ever being close to getting an accident.

From my personal experience, the 8 accidents that I've witnessed in the past two years were caused by the people riding bicycles. Since we've had the Bixi public bicycle system and the implementation of "bicycle highways", a lot more people ride instead of driving and they feel that since they aren't using fuel they can run red lights and cut cars as they wish. The 8 accidents that I've seen were all at 3pm at the beginning of my shift, on the same street corner and were all caused by the person riding the bicycle ignoring the red light and getting destroyed by a car turning left.