Longer yellow lights are more dangerous! It should be a signal to stop -- but if long enough, it becomes a signal to "speed up and hurry through." Amsterdam has very short yellow lights, but the result is that when you see yellow, you stop.
The conclusion is that overall people's behaviour wouldn't change much when there was more yellow time (in both 'stopping' and 'running' drivers). But that for a small portion of the 'running' drivers (the 'risk takers', who also just won't stop if the light has already turned red) the amount who jumped red would reduce.
In the time after that I noticed a lot more cars that I felt where jumping the red light. But if that is due to the increase of the decision time or that the changing to red for one lane and change to green for the other lane are closer together I don't know.
[0] https://nos.nl/artikel/2090320-verkeerslichten-langer-op-ora... [1] http://content1b.omroep.nl/urishieldv2/l27m0dd08d46743dff390...
Frankly, it's strange to me that even 0.12 sec was not enough, if the camera was only focused on the entry into the intersection. My guess is that it was shooting rear plates in the intersection, and catching turning cars (to maximize revenue)... Of course there are states where entering under a yellow is prohibited, but then we've legislated Pi to be 3 too.
Now, I have also seen Bostonians jump off the line before a light turned green and that would certainly have me stomping my brakes into a stale yellow, but I'm not sure it's safer.
What dumbasses came up with that rule? Isn't the whole point of the yellow light to signal that it will turn red soon, and that people have to make a choice?
So if you drive up to a green light then you have to stop, wait for the red light and then drive when it turns green again to ensure that you're not running a yellow light.
In practice yellow phases are too long and taken by many as a signal to speed up and speed through. I don't think police enforce the rules here, but this is clearly prohibited.
If you are still travelling fast at the lights when they turn red, you must have been ignoring the yellow light, so this makes no sense. The whole point of the yellow light is to ensure that you have time to stop before the lights go red, making running the red lights inexcusable.
Not that I've never run a red light, I'm no angel, but this argument is absurd.
That's how I learned it in Germany, anyway.
Especially professional drivers act like yellow is "speed up" light. There's not a single day when I don't notice multiple people driving on red during my commute.