You can get in a car accident at virtually any time. You can get in one a block from your house or a thousand miles from home. You can always encounter dangerous road conditions or unsafe drivers.
You might notice many accidents happen in intersections, though. That makes sense if you take some time to think it over. Intersections require that drivers obey established traffic laws. Some people either don’t know them or routinely break them.
You should understand how yellow lights can lead to dangerous collisions. However, red light accidents happen just as often.
In this article, we’ll talk about red and yellow lights and what you should know about each kind.
What Causes Many Yellow Light Accidents?
If you approach an intersection, you should know you’ll need to stop on a red light. If you see a yellow light, though, you can still go in most circumstances.
You want to try and time it so that your vehicle makes it through the intersection before the light turns red. If you make it all the way through the intersection on a yellow light, you obeyed the law, and no one can say anything different.
If you try to get through a yellow light and you’re moving forward and into the intersection while it turns red, though, you’re technically running a red light. Some drivers call that a “dark yellow” light, or they may have some other kind of terminology for it.
If you mistime a yellow light and go through most of the intersection after it turned red, an eager driver on either side of you might go forward the instant their light turns green. If they’re in a hurry to get where they’re going, they might not see you in time.
If that happens, they might run into your vehicle broadside. That can cause a T-bone accident. The two vehicles make a capital T when they collide.
A T-bone collision can easily kill you if the car with the green light strikes your driver’s side door going at a decent rate of speed. One of those can also kill your passenger if the other car strikes your vehicle from the right side rather than the left.
What Causes Most Red-Light Accidents?
As for red light accidents at intersections, these often happen if you’ve ingested alcohol before driving. Maybe you think the light’s yellow or green. If you go when it’s solid red, though, you might kill or seriously injure yourself or someone else.
If you ingest some other kind of drug and drive, you might make a similar mistake. Recreational marijuana has legal status in many states now. If you use it before driving, then you might cause a red-light collision in an intersection.
You might also cause a red-light accident if you try to make a right turn on red. You can legally do that in some places, and in certain intersections. However, if you don’t see a car coming from your left when you try to execute a right turn on red, you might cause an accident with lots of damage and injuries, or even deaths.
How Does the Law Feel About Each Kind?
If you cause a yellow light accident, the law won’t look at that favorably when the police arrive. They or a judge might chastise you, particularly if you tried to make it through an intersection with a light that was moments away from switching from yellow to red.
However, if you cause a red-light accident, that will usually get you much harsher penalties, particularly if you ingested alcohol or used drugs before you drove. In that situation, if you went through a red light that was clearly against you, you’re probably looking at jail time.
For example, if you run a red light while drunk and cause a T-bone collision that kills another driver or their passenger, the legal system will probably consider that reckless endangerment or vehicular manslaughter. That can get you a double-digit sentence behind bars.
If you try to turn right on a red light and cause an accident because you didn’t see another vehicle coming, that’s still not great, but it’s at least more understandable. It’s not likely you’ll get jail time unless you fail a breathalyzer or you have a strong odor or marijuana on you.
You must try to approach each intersection with care, no matter what color of light you have facing your vehicle.
