In the split second that my car is in an intersection and and such a person comes barreling through, the best I can do is slam on my brakes and hope for the best. I'm not even going to try to get out of the way because that could only make things worse by hitting another car or pedestrians who had nothing to do with the situation. If I had infinite time to respond I might be able to think this through, but we are talking less than a second of reaction time here. Really? This is worth it to you?
As much as I am in favor of cyclists and I am in favor of bike paths and every other variant thereof I do not get the incentive to save 30 to 60 seconds dodging a traffic signal versus the cost of what happens if it all goes wrong and I don't think I ever will.
Downvote this at will. This thread had me on the verge of deleting my Hacker News account but then I found out you can't do that. So I am posting this final response to say that this is what I think and if someone won't hire me because I think this way I probably don't want to work for them.
As for that paramedic, he didn't start that way. There used to be this particularly obnoxious cyclist in his town that made a habit of flying through intersections and taking his hands off the handlebars and giving the fingers to all the cars he cut in front of. One day he got hit and broke his leg cursing the driver that hit him the whole time. Said paramedic was the one who took him to the hospital knowing exactly who he was and what he had been up to. I still think the guy was a Darwin award in the making and he probably died later on in life if he continued doing crap like this. If that makes me a despicable human being then I am a despicable human being.