FBinNY 

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If you've ever seen a poker player fold after a raise, saying, "too rich for my blood." You'll understand what follows.

Whenever you proceed on a green light you're betting that the ALL cross traffic, is going to obey the red and stop.

It's not an unreasonable bet, and therefore we all drive our cars through on greens with a decent level of confidence. Otherwise the entire concept of traffic lights would be meaningless. In any case, it's a bet we're willing to make, since our potential loss is limited by a steel cage.

OTOH- when I'm on my bike, the stakes are much higher, and simply, "too rich for my blood".

JoeyBike

Agreed with your assessment with one footnote:

Even in my car I do not proceed immediately when a light turns green as SO MANY New Orleans motorists run red lights, and not just by accident. They just don't feel like waiting. So I use the same EXACT rules for traffic signals and other intersections in my car as I do on my bike. The only difference is in the car I actually obey all the traffic laws, on the bike - not so much.

1. Look BOTH ways before crossing any street, even a one-way street.

2. If you CAN'T SEE, you CAN'T GO.

3. If you're NOT SURE , you can't go.

My bones are at risk on the bike. My money is at risk in the car. I spent too much on my current "steel cage" (Camry) to have it damaged, or risk some monster truck climbing through my driver's side window into my lap.

mcours2006

My late father instilled this habit in me when I started driving. From experience I've seen numerous times from behind the wheel of my car the red-light runners. More imperative that I practice this on my bike.

DangerousDanR

Joey Bike:
it's not just NOLA. I had my first ever car to bike collision in 60 years of riding last fall. Fortunately I saw the left hook at the stop light early enough and was able to make it a glancing blow.

Also fortunate that I already had my Winter studded tires on, so the car needed to have the side repainted. Yes, it was an inattentive driver, probably a cellphone...

But I see at least one serious violation almost every day. I even saw a car blow a red light right in front of Fargo's finest and the cop didn't do anything.

Your rules are spot on, and I normally do the same thing, but I was headed for a business meeting and got sloppy. And I did have the right of way and we were both sitting at the light waiting for it to change, but... yeah. Hopefully it will be another 60 years until the next time.

I used to commute by motorcycle in SoCal and I was sure that cars were much more cautious on the days I had a softball bat with me.
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JoeyBike

Drove my car to a doctor's appointments just yesterday. It's about a 15 minute drive each way. A pickup truck next to me blatantly ran a red that I stopped for. Almost can't blame him as the light is TWO AND A HALF MINUTES each cycle. We had already waited once. The intersection is very wide and he was in it for at least five seconds. Thankfully cross traffic was obeying "Joey's Rules" as well. Then I saw another stop at a red and just go when it was clear endangering no one but STILL! On the way home it was school zone time and a sedan flashed by me weaving through 20 mph traffic in the school zone. He/she likely missed the school zone sign which is very easy to do in NOLA. Many are hidden behind overgrowth of the lights are not functional. Most are photo enforced.

So THREE blatant violations in 30 minutes of driving that I noticed.