An Example of Why Other People Confound Me

This is the intersection at SE 52nd and Holgate.

There is a traffic signal in all directions. I frequently bike through this intersection heading south quite late at night with little of note happening (much like the rest of my ride). Tonight, though, I saw something that utterly perplexes me.

Some background. When I'm riding late at night and there is little to no traffic, I will slow at red lights, but if the coast is clear, I will continue through. It is my believe that without traffic, a traffic light has no meaning and there should be a change in the laws that from, say, 11 PM to 5 AM, all traffic lights should be treated as stop signs. Or better yet, blinking reds (except for when there is still a relatively high volume of traffic, which is why the blinking red would work best) (plus, not all signals sense when a bike is waiting and will repeatedly skip my turn). However, if there is another car at the intersection with me waiting for a green light, I will wait for the light to change. I don't want to fuel the fire between drivers and cyclists by blowing red lights right in front of them.

As I'm riding south on 52nd Avenue, a car passes, but the light at Holgate changes to red. The car comes to a stop, but, seeing no traffic in either direction, proceeds through the red light only to turn into the driveway to the right immediately after the intersection. This driveway is right in front of the Bud Light truck on the image above (and leads to a Plaid Pantry parking lot). Also on this same image, right behind the Bud Light truck, is another driveway.

So, if you're not with me yet, I'll break it down. This driver, heading south on 52nd came to the red light at Holgate. Instead of taking a legal right turn on red and make an equally legal left turn into the Plaid Pantry parking lot, the driver decided to drive straight through the red light to make the right into the lot. What the hell is wrong with people?

It's possible that my mind is so boggled because drivers are always talking about how cyclists break so many laws when this shows, clearly that drivers break these same laws (and let's not forget it's a Saturday night and there's a high probability that the driver is buzzed at the least. He or she is hitting up a Plaid Pantry at 1 AM after all...). But as someone who likes to believe he's remotely logical, this is the sort of thing that will eat at me for a while because I will never know what the driver was thinking. The incident drove me to write far too many words on the subject, for crying out loud. After at 13 hour shift! I hope that the passenger gave him or her an earful, at least.

People...