I think the prevalence of this behaviour can be explained by the fact that in car centric infrastructure only people willing to take a fairly significant risk will be cycling in the first place. As a result you've selected for people willing to engage in risky behaviour towards themselves resulting in a fair few of them running red lights recklessly.

Couple this with the fact that the infrastructure was clearly not built with their safety in mind and it's no real surprise that many cyclists choose not to use it in the same way as cars.

Personally I think there's a good argument to be made for why, in many cases, it would be ok for a cyclist to carefully make their way through a junction at a red light. Although the real answer would be to build infrastructure that removes the incentive to behave that way.

I don't run red lights but I do cross on pedestrian signals from the road in such a way that probably makes drivers some angry.

The fact is it's much safer for me to clear the intersection ahead of drivers rather than have them try to pass me at the intersection. If there are two lanes of cars banked up behind me impatient people will try and pass without changing to the far lane; getting too close to me in the process.

Some signals in my city have bike boxes and secondary lights for bikes which change a few seconds before the car signals to give riders a head start - this accomplishes the same thing and feels much safer.

For example - https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-31.9548303,115.8601648,3a,5...

I one time did this in front of a police car (without thinking...), and the officers immediately pulled me over. It was evident that it wasn't for safety, it was that they felt disrespected.

Don’t assume they’re not special, by law. In some states, bicycles are allowed to proceed through red lights after stopping, while cars are not. (Perhaps similar to how motorcycles in CA are allowed to split lanes while cars are not.)

I don’t really see how else to take your comment but as justification, though FWIW, studies show cars break more traffic laws way more times than bikes.

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/biking/cycli...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/10/cyclists...

Do the traffic lights actually detect bikes? Sometimes the sensors can only detect heavy objects like cars, so on a bike you can just be stuck waiting there an arbitrary amount of time if you want to obey the law.

> I see cyclists cross red lights much too often. So it's not once it's way too many times.

Anecdatum: I can stand at the junction on the main road about 200m from here and, in peak time, see 5-10 cars (on each change) either deliberately jump the amber/red on one side or enter the junction in an unsafe manner on the other. Which means upwards of 100-200 cars per hour. For cyclists, it'll rarely be one per change; maybe 10 an hour.

That's one junction, albeit on a busy road.