Drivers here really enjoy running red lights. Now, it’s probably just that I grew up in a city of 40,000, so I’m not used to “big city” driving. Driving home from work (at least until I find an alternate route) requires me to take a fairly busy road (6 lanes) that crosses I-75, the highway that goes from Michigan to Florida, right through Atlanta. Even when I leave work at 6:30 at night, traffic is bumper to bumper the basically the whole time I’m on that road. And, the traffic lights aren’t synchronized, so when light A turns green, light B is still red, so the whole stretch of the road between A and B is packed with cars. So, naturally, the cars waiting at light A pull out into the intersection. By the time light B finally turns green and the cars can pull forward, light C is back to red, so there’s more roadblock. And when light A turns red again, 8 cars are still in the intersection, effectively blocking the cross street traffic from going anywhere. Granted, most of those cars are trying to turn onto the street I’m on, further blocking the intersection. And if a driver is lucky enough to be close to an intersection when the light is changing from green to red, they might as well go through the intersection. I mean, the line of cars is going to move forward sooner or later, right? So they might as well be “through” the light.
I’m glad I only live a few miles from work, so even in traffic it only takes me 15 minutes to get home…