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Red Lights Promote traffic safety: STOP at red lights. By Kimberly A. PorrazzoPublished: June, 2003

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Red means stop. Green means go. Pretty basic concept, right? Heck, we learned that in kindergarten, right along with ABC and 1,2,3. Remember that game, "Red Light, Green Light?" Kids race ahead when you say, "Green light." But when you shout, "Red light!" they have to stop. In some schools, disciplining students involves red and green cards. Break the rules and your green card is replaced with a red one. Red has always meant trouble is ahead if you don't stop. Even a 5-year-old knows that. So somebody please explain to me when the rules changed. When did a red light start to mean, "Floor it, so you make it through the intersection without having to stop!" It seems that the five-second rule - you know, the one that says if you drop your sucker on the floor but pick it up within five seconds, it's still OK to eat - it seems that rule now applies to traffic lights as well. As long as you plow through an intersection within 3-5 seconds of the light changing, it's OK. Think I'm exaggerating? Listen to the statistics. The U.S. Department of Transportation's Fatality Analysis stats show that nationwide, fatalities at traffic signals were up 18 percent between 1992 and 1998, due largely to red light runners. Half of those deaths were innocent drivers who still thought green meant "go" and were killed by traffic signal violators. California ranked eighth in red light fatalities, with Anaheim listed as the Orange County city with the most deadly red light incidents and Riverside posting the most in the Inland Empire. The Federal Highway Administration and the American Trauma Society recently surveyed drivers across the country. Some 63 percent of those questioned reported seeing someone running a red light once a day, or at the minimum, several times a week. Thirty-two percent of Americans (that's 1 in 3) know someone who has been injured or killed because of a red light runner. But get this...in a 1999 survey conducted for the National Stop Red Light Running Partnership, 56 percent of drivers admitted to having run a red light. The trend to ignore traffic signals is so prevalent that there is no longer any shock value when a violation occurs. No one says, "Hey, that guy just ran a red light!" Why? Because the rules have changed. And because the red light rule has changed, so too has the green light rule. Green no longer means go. It now means, "Look both ways for the idiot who no longer believes red means stop." Did you follow that? If not, blame it on our increasing tendency not to right a wrong. It causes confusion everywhere, including on our highways. Perhaps Orange County should step up and do what some 70 other communities across the country are doing. The Stop Red Light Running program, created by the Federal Highway Administration in 1995, promotes the installation of cameras at intersections that catch violators and send a hefty traffic ticket in the mail. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports that red light running is reduced by about 40 percent when camera programs are implemented. Opponents claim it's an invasion of privacy. I say, don't break the law and you'll have nothing to worry about. I ask you, is the 60 seconds you'll lose by waiting at a traffic light so critical in your busy day that you can't afford to follow the rules of the road? If it is, think about the newly licensed high school kid with his rap music blaring (who by the way still thinks green means go), who can't wait for the light to turn because he's late for class after leaving campus for lunch. Waiting a few seconds to make sure YOU stop might mean HE'LL be tardy. So as soon as he sees the green light, he guns it at the same time you do, as you try to beat your red light. (Shudder here as you envision the consequences.) That thought, along with the hard statistics, has me waiting a good five seconds before I proceed through a green light while looking both ways for the person too busy to follow the law. So why am I concerned if I don't break the rules? Because my son, the one I taught to play "Red Light, Green Light," is now driving. Please. Stop. Kimberly A. Porrazzo is an author and columnist. She lives in Lake Forest with her husband and two sons. She can be reached at: kimberlyporrazzo@cox.net.

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