How often does this happen?
Sounds like you’re one of those idiots who’s on their phone during a red light and needs the car behind you to provide a wake up call.
I’ve had this happen at least a few times. Each time it was because someone was in the crosswalk they couldn’t see and thought I was just being a dumbass.
Eh, I’ve seen it happen too, more than once. To be staring at the traffic light behind a line of cars and hear someone in front honk immediately when the light turned green. It is ridiculous.
This meme is about you, isn’t it?
My wife is this person, she grew up in Texas and it shows. She has alot of bad driving habits thay drive me nuts. Most Texans are like this in my experience.
It happens a lot in NYC. The couple times I took an Uber somewhere instead of the subway, the driver seemed to always be on the horn.
Come to India and you’ll see it everywhere.
If they’re stopping at red light in the first place, that is.
I missed the change of the first traffic light I stopped at when I had just bought my first car, I had stopped so the light was hidden behind my rearview mirror, got a deserved honk
Why didn’t you move your head?
What part of “first car” confuses you?
Sorry, I thought it was clear that it was an unfamiliar situation as a new driver, the lights was in a slightly unusual configuration so I didn’t see the light as I pulled up and thus never realized that I needed to shift my head to see it.
Yup. Every time I see a post like this I know exactly who it is.
When I can clearly see you on your phone, yes.
Head down looking at their lap instead of driving. Straight to jail.
If only, sadly even doing that while you drive over human speed bumps is ok
they race up behind you, tailgate you, swerve to pass you in the next lane, then take several seconds to get going at the light, all while I’m still coasting in gently because I timed the light change
goddamn right I’m up their ass honking at them. get a fucking move on dipshit
While it is rude to honk immediately when the light turns green, it is also true that taking too long to accelerate when the light changes severely reduces traffic flow and causes congestion. And this is commonly caused by distracted drivers. You are supposed to release your brake and begin moving at roughly the same time as the car in front of you, i.e. when the car in front of you turns off their brake lights or when the traffic signal turns green if you’re in the front.
Edit: “Too long” realistically means anything more than half a second. If everyone’s reaction time was one second it would reduce the number of cars per green light probably by half. That doesn’t mean it’s polite to honk after half a second but if your reaction time is that bad you should not be driving.
i will never understand why us traffic lights go immediately from red to green. you have a whole-ass third light to use for signaling that the light is about to change, so people don’t have to floor it due to an unexpected change.
Drivers in the US would start treating that middle light as go and we’d be right back to square one
seems like a pretty good reason for revoking a licence to me
You don’t need to do a lot of enforcement to change that behaviour. And you can do the enforcement with red light cameras
Fuck red light cameras and fuck you for suggesting them.
In many localities voters have used initiative powers to ban red light cameras and in some jurisdictions red-light camera fines are deemed constitutional violations because the US Constitution requires those accused of crimes to be able to “confront their accuser” in court which is not possible if the accuser is a machine.
Red light and/or speed cameras are banned in many parts of the US, because courts have repeatedly ruled that they’re unconstitutional. The constitution’s sixth amendment guarantees the right to argue against your accuser in court. This was originally intended to prevent secret surprise court rulings, which the British used against Americans leading up to and during the revolution; The crown would accuse people of crimes and try them without any notice. When they obviously failed to show up to court, they were found guilty in absentia and arrested.
Regional courts have repeatedly banned the cameras, by ruling that because people can’t argue against an inanimate object, the object can’t accuse people of crimes. Basically, the constitution says you have the right to get your day in court, and some courts have interpreted that to mean the automated cameras violate that right.
That’s weird. Isn’t the accuser in that case the police or whoever is in charge of those cameras? The camera just provides evidence, doesn’t it?
Isn’t the accuser in that case the police or whoever is in charge of those cameras?
If it were a cop pulling you over and writing a ticket, sure. It would be that cop. They can show up in court and stand as a witness for you to cross-examine. But if the entire system is automated, which specific cop is the accuser?
Is the system completely automated in the US? We still have people from that department going through each picture, checking if there is indeed a violation. That person will then type out your license plate and a letter is sent to you.
If you pay, it’s done. If you don’t pay you will have to show up to court and make your case, while they will show up with that picture and date/time as proof.
The accuser in that case is the person that read the license plate from the picture.
That’s not how it works. I had to fight a ticket from one of these once.
An invalid ticket, for the record. I was innocent and I could prove it with dash cam footage. I did not run the red light, but as usual everybody acts like accusation is the same as guilt and you know how that song and dance goes.
First, those cameras are almost never operated by the state or the police. They’re run by a private company which is under some kind of contract with your state or municipality. You’ll find this is why racking up tickets from red light cameras usually can’t put points on your license.
Anyway, you will face your accuser in court if you challenge the ticket. That person will be some lackey from the company that owns the cameras, whose job it is to show up to court. Theoretically this person was also supposed to have reviewed the evidence related to the incident in question, and this is what lets them get around that pesky constitutional requirement you mentioned. In my state the requirement is that two pictures must be shown, a before and after, positively depicting the vehicle in question crossing into the intersection. In my case the second picture was mysteriously absent from the ticket, which of course the state still treated as “valid” until I challenged it. This despite the conspicuous empty square on the printout they mailed me where that photo was supposed to be. The twerp from the camera company tried several tactics (unsuccessfully) to weasel out of producing the second picture until the judge forced him to. To no one’s surprise whatsoever, it showed my car exactly in the same spot as the first picture and my ticket was dismissed.
I still had to take a day off of work to contest it, though, and the private entity knowingly lied and attempted to slap me with a fraudulent ticket knowing full well they would never actually be punished for doing so. And they weren’t.
The guy whose case was right after mine on the docket was disputing a similarly bogus ticket, which he showed me. He was a big black dude with a Harley I saw parked outside. The “damning” photo evidence printed on his ticket showed a skinny white guy in a wife beater on a crotch rocket. I have to imagine he won his case as well, but I did not stick around to find out.
So the system is indeed still bullshit, but not in the way people expect.
That’s not how it works where I live. I had to fight a ticket from one of these once, because I live in an area where courts haven’t ruled the cameras unconstitutional.
FTFY. The rest of your comment needs to have that context in mind, because the cameras’ legality entirely depends on where you live.
Only nine states have outlawed red light cameras. Your “many” statement you made earlier is, in fact, just “some.”
The sixth amendment challenge has been proposed several times, but very few of the actual rulings I can find contained anyone successfully using this as an argument. One for instance is The People v. Khaled in California where the camera operators were not available for cross-examination. All the state has to do is provide their witnesses and the sixth challenge goes out the window.
Insofar as red light camera schemes have been declared unconstitutional in state courts, this is most often because the scheme in question exceeded the authority granted to cities and municipalities, which tried to go over the heads of their superseding states. You can call this a win since they were indeed declared “unconstitutional,” but not for the reason you specified. The US Supreme Court has also been silent on the sixth amendment argument.
So, fixed that for you.
If you have to stoop to attacking someone’s grammar in an argument, you’ve already lost. I likely won’t be replying to this comment chain again.
Edit: Lol they edited their comment. The original was only as follows:
Only nine states have outlawed red light cameras. Your “many” statement you made earlier is, in fact, just “some.” So, fixed that for you.
That’s because practically nobody here drives a car with a manual transmission, and the reason for those in Europe is (or originally was) to give drivers notice when they need to get back into gear.
A knock-on consequence of this is that nobody in the US knows how to drive, they just point the wheel vaguely in some direction and mash the skinny pedal. If they don’t get the result they wanted, they stomp on the pedal harder. You ought to watch chucklefucks try to drive in the snow, especially those with SUVs and muscle cars with rear wheel drive. People treat the throttle as if it’s the “make the car go in the direction I’m looking button” and the rest of us know that’s not how it works.
surely traffic lights pre-date automatics?
It’s not hard if you can see the other lights in the intersection.
but why depend on that?
No idea.
they used to have this. it did not go well.
wait, what? why not? it works for the rest of the world…
would be interested to know an example country you’re thinking of.
wild stuff. thanks!
Yes, green means go!11! Even there’s an old lady that just didn’t finish crossing yet, she just had to do it in the few seconds allowed.
My favorite one is people honking at other drivers for not blocking an intersection because “it’s green!”. I don’t know the term in English but in French it’s a mix of intersection and blocage. Like, if the light is green but there is no space to advance because of gridlock, some apparently like to make it worse by advancing their car in an intersection and sit there while it turns red, and thus blocking the intersection. BuT It WaS GreEn!
“Don’t block the box” is the common saying for the law in the states.
You draw a square in the intersection and that’s a “don’t stop here” zone.
Folks will pull into it and wait, and they block the view for anyone behind them too.
“Gridlock” is the term for when a street is fully locked up and cars are blocking the intersections
In Spain you would have to wait for 5-10 seconds without moving for anyone to honk. At least where I live. People just don’t usually get angry about it. I don’t expect anyone to stare at the red light like it’s a race track. Maybe someone is adjusting the radio, maybe they are putting on sunglasses. I mean, I don’t care, I can arrive 5 seconds later. 99% of drivers here think the same.
I once worked with a British guy here. He drove me somewhere couple of times and he would always complain at how long Spanish drivers take to start when light changes. He crashed and totaled his car soon after. Slipped on a slightly wet asphalt and went out of the road. For me it’s typical that the worse drivers are the impatient ones. Just relax, it’s not a race.
So I can appreciate all of this. It is not a race. I can wait 5 seconds. I think I’ll give a toot at 5 seconds, because 5 seconds is legit a lot of time to not be looking where you’re supposed to be. And I have lights in my town that go green for 15-20s, before going red again for 45-60s. So when you eat up 25-33% of the green signal, it’s kinda rude, and so a double toot, to me, is more than appropriate.
I think that if people are getting offended by the green light time other driver are eating up it means that driving has way too high priority in their life. I mean, I get it, but it’s kind of sad.
You’re in pole position, you have a responsibility to those behind you. Be considerate and pay attention.
Yeah, and for anyone concerned, this doesn’t mean jam on the gas, but you got a make some move. You can be conscious of intersecting traffic and whether they’ve actually come to a stop, as well as aware of everyone behind you apparently being in a huge hurry, because they always are. So take your foot off the brake, let me see those brake lights go away, and it’s at least a signal to everyone that we are underway here at Silverstone.
What bothers me are the people who do go when the light turns green, but take their damn sweet time to do it…
Eeeease oofffff the braaaake…. Mooove fooot toooo gaaaaassssss… Creeeeep into intersection at 0.05mph….
…just as long as they get through before the light turns red again, fuck everyone behind them, I guess.
Fuck those people.
Yeah, personally I’m all about clear the intersection. There’s conflicting movements and it’s a bottleneck, let’s all get through as efficiently as we can. This doesn’t mean flooring it, but we can at least apply some throttle, and not just through but beyond the intersection, because contrary to what some folks believe, there are people on the road other than you.
Can’t help but think if the light really just turned green, or if OP just noticed it was green and assumed it just changed but had been green for a while.
Get off the phone you fucking imbecil. Stop making people’s days any worse than they need to be.
Do you not understand what, “the second the light turns green” means?
That phrase tends to be much less literal when its said by those who are getting honked at regularly to move off from the lights.
If someone is telling you they get honked at all the time for no reason there usually is a reason (or several) and they just refuse to acknowledge what they’re doing.
Do you not have yellow lights that tell that they are about to change?
Not in Canada and I believe also not in the US. The yellow only comes before red, not before green.
Here it’s red, green, yellow, red, green, yellow…
That…makes so much sense.
Not the one you commented to, but not where I drive.
Some intersections you cannot see the cross-traffic signals. Some intersections don’t have much cross-traffic to watch, either.
Interesting how you’re taking the asshole’s side, though.
Could say the same about you. Stop wasting time for other people. Have some decency.
Yea and that’s explicitly not the context of the original post.
It’s natural to take a second before taking off, either unintentionally or intentionally due to safety. Maybe leave on time to account for those extra few seconds that they are holding you up.
It’s not only natural, it’s a good idea. Especially if you are crossing a large road.
I ride a motorcycle more often than not (see user name) and it’s vital to ensure that the cross traffic is actually stopping when their light is red. You aren’t “protected” because your light is green, and there’s nothing physically stopping any asshole blowing the light and ramming into the side of you, probably without slowing down in the slightest first. That’s because they’re also staring at their phone. I can’t even go a week anymore without watching some moron sail straight through a red light right in front of me such that if I hadn’t spotted them first they would have run me over. And it’s happening more and more often as drivers are more distracted than ever before. A couple of years ago I’d only see this sort of thing once every few months.
The light is green. Why are you not moving?
I live in an area where I think the worst drivers in the US live. I absolutely hate people who honk as soon as the light turns green. You don’t know what I can see, you don’t know if it is safe to go. Because sometimes it isn’t. I’ve had to learn to still look both ways after the light turns green because almost once a week (and I only drive 2-4 days most weeks) I see someone completely blow the red going 60 in a 45.
I also blame phones for traffic, because it goes the other way too. Why did you miss that green, because 3 people in front of you were on their phones. I usually give a slow 5 count before giving a beep.
I assume the person in front is waiting for the red light runners to clear the intersection before starting.
Never happened to me before. Light goes green and I go. Why is driving so difficult for people
Yeah, if this kind of thing happens to someone often enough that they deem it worthy to make a low effort meme about it, they’re the kind of person who obliviously holds up traffic everywhere they go.
I saw someone do that in Korea. The guy in front immediately stops the car and sits there for like 2 minutes as the guy behind honks and eventually does like a 7 point turn to go around.
Do you want me to go the speed limit? Because that’s how you get me to go the speed limit.
Same. I was in a hurry till you honked. Now all of a sudden I have all day and nowhere to be.
Don’t let other idiots turn you into just as big of an idiot.
Actually, you’re definitely the bigger idiot here. The honker may have annoyed you, but you are annoying the 30 people behind you to spite one single person.
It’s not my job as a driver to worry about someone behind me thinking I’m moving too slowly. It’s my job as a driver to be aware if some other moron is running a red light. And as impatient as you mother fuckers are, it’s probably you.
It’s fascinating that you think taking petty revenge by slowing down excessively to “punish” a single jerk right behind you, and the subsequent line of innocent people with no part in your conflict, is reasonable behaviour. The jerk behind you annoyed a single person (you), and in turn you annoy dozens of people that have done nothing to you whatsoever.
Fascinating probably isn’t the word you want.
No it is…it’s fascinating that you can’t (or won’t) see that you’re a bigger traffic issue than the person honking and believe that your reaction is justified.
Oh. Wait, we have a misunderstanding. This can happen online when you can’t type inflection or tone. My bad.
I am fully aware of my actions, the results, the costs, and fully accept any consequences that come my way. I am not under any impression that I am not a problem, not the bigger asshole, or less petty than anyone else. I drive about 200 to 250 miles in a 40 hour work week and have tons of experience with bad drivers. Sometimes I get in a mood and basically lash out at everyone. It’s a fault of mine and I know it. I’m not apologizing for it or working to correct it. Petty? You bet. Asshole? Present. Cause of accidents? No, I’m actually very careful not to do that.
I’m by and large a way more courteous driver than most people I see. You have a turn signal on? I’ll do everything I can to help you change lanes. I zipper merge like they showed in the text book. Do I speed? Yes, but never more than 5mph over the limit and never in a resedential area. Every bicyclist gets at least 5 feet of clearance. People walking dogs get the same.
But you honk at me in the first second of a green? We’re waiting till I feel like going.
I mean… you should always go the speed limit, right? Or slower of course.
This is the most car brained take in the entire comment section. If you’re one of the drivers that consistently goes 10kmh above the speed limit then fuck you
That behavior is almost completely dictated by where you live. The safest speed to go while driving is the speed at which the majority of people around you are driving. In my city, that happens to be at least 10 mph above the speed limit.
That’s insane. That’s an insane thing to say. Me going 10 over in a school zone is dangerous as fuck even if everyone else is doing it. Me going 10 over in a residential zone or a built up area is also super dangerous.
What are your general speed limits in those areas?
There’s no point in arguing here, drivers are never at fault according to them. It is clearly safer to go fast if everyone drives too fast (citation not needed, it’s obvious duh). Your braking distance almost doubles at 10mph over, but who cares about that! Who needs to be able to react to a person suddenly running onto the road. It’s their fault, for cars are supremacy. I hate cars so fucking much.
