Yellow Light Phenomenon

Last summer, when we moved to Salt Lake City from upstate New York, I was surprised to discover nearly everybody here runs yellow traffic lights. It’s expected. I learned thanks to the reaction of a man in a car far behind me when I approached an intersection of fairly busy roads and the light turned yellow. I had plenty of time to stop, so I stopped.  It wasn’t like he was driving on my bumper.  He had time to stop too.  Afterwards, he pounded on his horn.  I looked in my rear view mirror to see why he was honking and was surprised to see his face red and scrunched up in anger.  He threw both of his arms up in front of him as if to say, “What the heck?”  Clearly, he was upset I stopped at the yellow light.  If I had gone through, he would have sped up and gone through too.  Since then, I have noticed people speed up when they approach yellow lights and the people behind them speed through even after the light is clearly, solidly, red.  Because of this phenomenon, when I am in a busy intersection at a green light waiting to turn left, I have learned to wait until the light turns red and oncoming traffic is basically stopped.  I’ve learned to expect everybody to run yellow lights even after the lights turn red.  I've learned to make sure there is plenty of room between me and the car behind me to make sure they have time to stop if I stop. What is a yellow light supposed to mean anyway?  I was taught it means “slow down and use caution.”  Here, it seems to mean, “Hurry up!  It’s your last chance to make it through this intersection.  You better put all you’ve got into that pedal.  Otherwise you might have to wait two minutes for the next green light. Oh, and if you’ve been waiting a long time and there are two or three cars ahead of you in that intersection waiting to turn left, and that light turns red, even though you are stopped a car length or two behind the crosswalk, you go ahead and plow right through that red light.  After all, you paid your dues.  You waited while the light was green.  You’ve earned it.”

Yes, I wrote this for my writing class. :)