#143 When you decide to go through the yellow light and the guy behind you goes too

Baby, you can drive my car.

At least sometimes I feel that way when I’m caught in a yellow-light staredown and suddenly find myself death-gripping the wheel while make that split-second decision to fly through or slam the brakes.

It’s very stressful.

If you’re like me sometimes you’re in the middle of the intersection when you suddenly think: “Oh shoot… I shouldn’t have gone.”

When that happens it’s always satisfying to see the car behind you come through the intersection, too. I mean, you thought you were pushing it, but just look at that guy. Suddenly your move is totally justified and police officer’s job is a whole lot easier.

AWESOME!

Photo from: here

36 thoughts to “#143 When you decide to go through the yellow light and the guy behind you goes too”

  1. I used to love doing this until the red-light cameras took all the fun out of life. I still run all red lights after 2am. I treat them as stop signs.

    1. Stupid red-light cameras :(
      Where’s the fun in life when we can’t run red lights anymore?
      When I was down in Pensacola with my friend, though, we’d be still a ways from the light and it would start to turn amber and he’d speed up, like ‘WE CAN TOTALLY MAKE THIS’ as I’d be gripping the seat. Apparently they don’t have red-light cameras there, or else he’d be broke from the tickets he’d receive.

  2. I like this, especially when the light goes red before you’re through. If there’s a dude behind you, then they’re MUCH naughtier than your are :-)

    1. Beatles Girl, before today, I haven’t commented in ages, but I noticed that you make some interesting comments. Where are you from?

      1. I’m from 2 places! One is home to my alter ego;) I am Canadian:)
        Where are you from?

  3. I was so afraid of this “should-I-shouldn’t-I” situation at the lights when I was going for my P’s test. Thankfully, I got all green lights and smooth sailing. ;)

    1. LOL,
      I don’t think the american’s know what you mean when you say your p”s test…
      but I do! :)
      gosh that test was pretty stressfull huh!

        1. flip flops, instead of thongs?
          shrimp instead of prawns?
          hahaha
          was so funny when watching the oprah show down under & she said julia gillards name!
          ahahahha!

  4. You hit the accelerator hard , when you see a yellow in India. That’s why the driving sense is so bad here. Now, I am sure you haven’t heard of the following new innovative Indian driving maneuvers:

    1. The regulars kind-of remember the sequence of traffic lights going green or red on an intersection. They keep inching ahead of the zebra in anticipation of the Red to go Green and have almost reached the middle by the time its their turn to go! Pathetic!

    2. And listen to this one: I have seen some uber-drivers who are waiting at a RED, accelerate their bikes and go ahead, when their previous lane’s light goes YELLOW. Eeeeks! Crash!

  5. Everyone knows that yellow means go faster!!!
    If I am in the front of the line when the yellow lights pops up, I will rarely stop. It just mostly depends on how far away I am from the intersection. If I think I can at least be under the light when it turns red, I will go for it.

  6. @trixierix, that happened to me last week, lovely fine of 325$ for a stupid red light camera didn’t know was even there, aren’t there suppose to be signs? Now I am afraid to check the mail, I got stuck in an intersectlion during my trip to Toronto.

  7. This happened to me just the other day. I made that split second decision and punched the accelerator. The light turned red just as it passed out of sight at the top of my windshield, and I instinctively looked back to see if there was a cop there, but no, there was an SUV following me through the light, and behind that another car following both of us through. I felt so justified.
    Awesome!

  8. I was taught and still think, “Proceed with caution is the Golden Rule” and I do believe as in Noah’s Arc, “Two by Two” goes hand in hand:)

  9. i dont know why, but i got the chills when reading this one…
    maybe cuz its just sooo me. i hate yellows. i wish there was a light to warn you that the yellow was coming…like a purple light or something…
    but anyway, as always, thanks for a great post!

    1. I’m so sorry for your loss… that part’s way not awesome :( I grew up on an intersection where there were many car accidents (at least 2 a month with varying severity), it’s made me VERY timid about yellow lights!

    2. That’s what I was thinking about. It IS very dangerous. I’m so sorry for your loss, my heart goes out to you and the people connected to your co-worker. I hope when people read this they realise to stop, slow down and just chill. There’s no need to rush through something. Stopping for 30 seconds of your life won’t kill you or anyone else, but speeding through 30 seconds of your life might.

  10. Haha! I just wrote a post about patience today. Yellow lights are the ultimate test of patience. Am I willing to make my drive 45 seconds longer? Hmmm. All the time, I speed through yellow lights that I probably shouldn’t. I’m going to start making an effort to slow down and stop, because I think I owe it to all the left-turners I’ve pissed off in the past. (Although, I’m not going to lie, it does feel great to speed through a yellow light and then see the car behind do the same thing.)

  11. Re: “When that happens it’s always satisfying to see the car behind you come through the intersection, too.” OMG!! I TOTALLY breathe a sigh of relief when this happens! :D

  12. This is so NOT AT ALL AWESOME… people: PLEASE think twice and STOP. I was t-boned at an intersection by a guy running it going 50 mph. He “claimed” it was green. Lucky for me there were witnesses who saw he was 100% at fault. 2 years later I am still dealing with the injury effects. I was lucky though… others have died from this type of accident.

    Not cool… not awesome… not anything but pain and suffering.

    Is your time more important than someone’s LIFE?

    1. I do agree with that. Yellow lights are a real risk to drivers,especially ones with bad judgement. Usually I do stop at yellow lights, unless there are no other cars around.

  13. I totally know what you mean. I’m a new driver and I get stressed out easily while driving and trying to make the right decision and those yellow lights don’t help me out at all. Usually I just brake at the yellow light, but not always.

  14. What’s better is the point when you know that you’re going to get through these lights, when it would be too dangerous to try to slow down to stop before them and blitzing through is actually the safer option :D

  15. Or when that yellow turns red right as youre going through it and the guy behind you STILL goes lol

  16. I’ve probably been thinking about this for a long time and hoping that it would show up on here. Love it when that happens! Thanks Neil!

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