Comment by CalRobert
5 days ago
Generally speaking if you're going the speed limit you don't need to "slam on your breaks (sic)" to stop before a light turns red unless you didn't have enough time to clear the intersection anyway.
5 days ago
Generally speaking if you're going the speed limit you don't need to "slam on your breaks (sic)" to stop before a light turns red unless you didn't have enough time to clear the intersection anyway.
Surely it depends how close you are to the line when the light turns yellow.
My partner slams on his breaks even though he goes below the speed limit and has plenty of time to clear the intersection. It's not just the speed.
Depends how far you are away from the light when it turns.
And, of course, your speed.
Clearly both are a factor but you don't need both. Even if I go 20mph I have to slam on the breaks hard if the light turns when I'm just three ft away. The only way around this is to treat every light like a stop sign where you do a California roll
Edit: As a related pet peeve I've never understood why we don't have countdowns for car traffic lights like we do for pedestrians. These IMO would not only increase safety but also fuel savings (especially if we had them for each signal change) as I could time my arrival at the traffic light to minimize braking and acceleration.