Why not just come to a full stop? It's presumably dark out at 3am so you may have missed a pedestrian or a vehicle with no headlights. It only takes an extra second or two to stop and look around.

At the majority of signal-controlled intersections with city limits there's plenty of visibility even (or dare I say especially) at 3am and the scanning can happen as you approach.

(Also, the kind of rolling stop I'm talking about isn't a 5mph roll, it's a near-stop that feels like a stop to the driver but technically doesn't actually bring the tires to stationary. Odds are even you have done this kind of stop pretty regularly without realizing it, and even a cop wouldn't even notice it as incorrect unless they were actively looking for someone to ticket.)

Odds are I haven't since I'm always careful to stop twice when turning right on red. (Once before the crosswalk, and again at the far side of the crosswalk to check for cross traffic before executing the turn.)

The second stop is legally irrelevant—if your first stop is insufficient you've run the red as far as the camera is concerned.

The second stop may actually be illegal in its own right depending on the state.

It's what I was taught to do in driver's ed. I know of no state where turning right on a red light is compulsory so I don't see how coming to a complete stop at any point could possibly be considered illegal.

You're in the intersection at that point and blocking the crosswalk, so you're no longer behind the red light, you're in front of it. In every state I've lived in you can absolutely get pulled over for stopping in the road where there is no need and no signal.

The first stop is for the crosswalk. (I might do this even when the light is green if there is a pedestrian in the crosswalk since never hitting a pedestrian is a rule of mine.) If I see a pedestrian in or approaching the crosswalk I wait here until they are completely cleared. Then I slowly roll forward for the second stop. This is the stop I use to check for approaching motor traffic. I have better visibility now because there's no longer a lifted F150 blocking my view to the left. Assuming I do notice an approaching vehicle I'm supposed to what? Drive into it? I would love to be in court accused of failing to run a red light into active cross traffic.

Anyway, you can drive however you want. I've been driving like this for over 30 years all across the United States and I have never been pulled over, cited, rear ended, or even, as far as I can recall, honked at while pulling this particular maneuver so I think some of the risks you are imagining may be overblown.

I don't really find anything wrong with your approach (I do the double-stop sometimes too, if conditions warrant it). But coming to a complete stop (once or twice), for many intersections, for many road conditions, for many times of day, is not going to meaningfully increase anyone's level of safety (yours, another driver's, a cyclist's, a pedestrian's...) vs. a momentary pretty-much-but-not-really-stopped stop.

To use your phrasing, the risk of anything bad happening after a not-quite stop may be overblown.

Sure, I'll agree that there may be times when the "extra" caution is unwarranted by the situation at the intersection. But by doing this every time I ingrain it as an automatic habit which greatly reduces my ongoing risk of failing to use extra caution at some point where it is warranted!

Since the failure mode is an auto accident and the cost of the habit is marginal I feel comfortable promoting this behavior. I have definitely seen accidents and many near misses caused by people who failed to come to a complete stop and look around when conditions did warrant it.

Another lesson I learned in driver's ed is that traffic approaching from the left can be traveling at a speed that completely synchronizes with the A-pillar of your moving vehicle, causing it to be completely invisible to you right up until the moment it collides with your front driver's side fender. This is why I stop and move my head around while I look, to make sure I'm not missing anything. I'm just a stupid human after all.

You have a STOPPING line that is on YOUR side of the crosswalk. That is the line you stay behind during a red light, if you stop then cross the line and stop again in the eye of the law it's no different than if you hadn't stopped behind the line at all.

You are correct that it's not compulsory to turn right on a red, however, if you are going to turn right you can't just stop in the middle of the intersection you either stay back or you go.

Never while turning right on red. I was rear ended once by a fellow who was looking at his phone and did not notice me and the line of stopped cars waiting at a red light. But sometimes what can you do?

Depends on your state. In my state we can take driving actions that violate the law as long as we can prove it was safe to do at the time. Your state may not be so lenient.

> Why not just come to a full stop?

Because people don't. That's just a fact of life, and we even have silly names (like "California stop") for the all-too-common behavior of barely or not completely stopping at a stop sign before continuing on.

I'm not excusing this behavior (even though I do it myself), but it's a widespread fact of life. The world is squishy, and I don't think it's reasonable to punish everyone for not coming to a full stop every single time, even if it's 0.01% safer to do so.

It's also kinda hard to define a "full stop". Well, obviously there are some states that are very obviously a car at rest. But if you were to, say, graph my car's speed at an intersection with a stop sign, you might see a curve that flattens out to where the slope is zero. Maybe that zero-slope point is a teeny tiny fraction of a second, though. Did I come to a full stop? Yes! Can a cop actually realize I did come to a full stop? Often not. Ok, so I did stop, but did I give enough time while at a full stop in order to assess that it was safe to continue moving? Do I even need to do that after I've come to a full stop, or can I start that assessment when my speed is 3mph, and know by the time I've fully stopped that it's immediately safe to continue? I think so, yes.

It's just fuzzy. Humans are fuzzy. The law is fuzzy. Safety is not a yes/no binary, it's fuzzy. Many many people don't always come to a full stop. That's just a fact; asking why is probably pointless.