Entering an intersection on a new green ight

I watched the drivers on either side of me the other morning, on my way to work.

We were stopped waiting for a red light and I could see that both of them were totally focused on the that light. Neither moved their heads, and both immediately moved when the light turned green.

What a wonderful example of blind faith.

The two most likely sources of conflict for a driver facing a traffic light that changes to green are drivers who speed up on the yellow (light) to beat the red light on the cross street and drivers who turn left from the oncoming lanes.

Drivers who speed up approaching a yellow light are choosing to increase the risk that they will run the light if they misjudge and it turns red. Drivers who proceed on the green without doing a 180-degree scan of the intersection first are inviting a broadside or "T-bone" collision.

This type of collision is likely to result in severe injury for the passengers on the side of the vehicle that is struck.

The first thing to do is pause for an instant. Remember, you must yield to cross traffic that is still in the intersection.

Look left, look right and insure that cross traffic is coming to a stop. This is the 180-degree scan. Having done that, look left again and then move your foot from the brake to the accelerator if the way is clear. It never hurts to supplement faith with a bit of caution.

This same practice of looking left and right should also take place before you enter an intersection where you have a stale green light. Similarly, if there are no traffic lights and cross traffic has a stop sign—look left, right and left again.

Yes, cross traffic is supposed to come to a stop when the light for you changes to green. You can probably get by believing they will until someone makes a mistake or willfully disobeys the light.

Blindly hitting the throttle as soon as the light changes to green doesn't seem like such a good idea now, does it?

Finally, you don't have to be a driver to exercise the left, right and left again scan. A pedestrian stepping into a crosswalk would be wise to do this before stepping off the curb.

Many drivers don't like to stop before turning right on a red light and are probably looking left for cross traffic rather than looking right for you.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.