The reason why I sometimes treat traffic lights as stop signs is because I'm worried the driver coming up to the red light might be distracted by their phone and run right into me. This has happened to two of my friends.
So my seemingly disregard of the traffic laws is often to put more space between me and heavier vehicles.
However if car and I end up at a four-way stop at the same time, I'll let the car go first because I don't trust that driver saw me.
With driving a two-ton vehicle should come more responsibility and attention, but Americans view driving as a God given right.
This is something motorcyclists need to be hyper-aware of too. Same idea approaching yellow lights. Here’s a scenario that happens all the time: you’re coming up on a yellow. There’s a car in the intersection ahead waiting to make a left into your path. The car behind you isn’t slowing down, he either isn’t paying attention or wants to run the yellow. What do you do to stay alive?
The right answer is to act earlier to avoid that situation in the first place, but there will be times when you find yourself in a bad spot.
It is a yellow light, go through if it isn't safe to stop. I really don't understand the problem here.
It can seem like a non-issue, but it really isn’t. Drivers’ eyes are trained by experience to recognize other cars. From a driver’s point of view, an approaching bike (motor or otherwise) is a narrow vertical line that has very little apparent motion. Even if they see you, it’s really hard for an oncoming driver to gauge your speed.
There are things you can do to make yourself more visible, like swerve a little in your lane. This gives you some lateral motion that makes you pop out of the background.
The point is that on two wheels you face situations that four wheel drivers don’t think about or understand because they take their visibility for granted.
Most drivers break the law every day in ways that are much more dangerous than a cyclist running a stop sign.
Let's consider speeding, one of the most dangerous and commonplace of traffic violations. Drivers are rarely penalized for it, despite its potential lethality.
On the other hand, it is relatively easy for a cyclist to clear an intersection due to a bicycle's slower speed and better field-of-vision.
Perhaps it's best to leave this issue to cyclists; most cyclists are drivers, but very few drivers are cyclists. And it shows.
Is it even within three orders of magnitude?
[1]: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a31136893/pedestrian-death...
And let's hit cyclists with the same penalties as drivers for the same violations.
I see cyclists blowing stop signs and ignoring traffic lights regularly.