When my Dad drove though a crossing for which the light had already turned yellow, he used to always say: "That was a pink one!", i. e. not quite dark red.
I spent a lot of time driving in town this week for various reasons and I had a lot of chances to observe people driving through on "pink" lights:
- Numerous drivers who, upon seeing yellow, floored it instead of stopping;
- A van driver who just kept tooling along, but of course, he was yakking in his mobile phone (forbidden in Germany, btw) making it kind of difficult to react to everything;
- A two-trailer truck coming from the left at a Y-junction, barreling down with at least 50-60 kmh just as I was accelerating (scared the living daylights out of me);
- A taxi driver (with a passenger!) who was turning left and did not enter the crossing until after the light turned red - he could have lost his taxt license (rightly so!) if a cop had seen this stunt.
Don't get me started on the bicyclists or the kids running across the street against a red light to catch a bus or the folks double- or triple-parking. I am truely amazed that there are not more accidents in town with all this "the law is only valid for everyone else, not for me, I'm in a hurry."
For sure, I now follow the old pedestrian sage "Look both ways before crossing the street" when driving my car, even if I have a green light.
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