There are intersections where if you're familiar with them you know what is safe. For example at one intersection near me if I just miss the green I know the next signal is to give cross traffic left turn greens, which means no one else can be going into the lanes. I do stop, but only for a brief moment because there can always be inattentive drivers doing the wrong thing.

Of course I'm not one to really get pissed at folks for not conforming to my driving preferences, so that part is weird to me, but I do get annoyed when someone stops for like 20 seconds with no traffic. If you do that, you might get the shortest toot with my horn I can manage to wake you up if you've somehow forgotten you can turn, but that's it.

I don't go anywhere with so tight a time margin that an extra minute or two in traffic is going to matter.

I live in Utah - which is bad enough, but I deal with this punitive driving malarky all the time. People getting angry at me for stopping at a red light before continuing into the turn - as if I'm the one doing something wrong!! And just where are all these people in such a frantic, panicked rush to get to that having to courteously wait for someone to turn is going to ruin their entire g-d day.

You talk about people always thinking they have a personal green light. Here in Utah, NOBODY yields right of way to anyone. In fact, every day we have more people getting hit by our Trax commuter trains because they refuse to stop for the flashing red signals and wait.

And don't think for a minute anyone here will yield right of way even if you're the one who actually has it. They never look to see if someone is coming in front or behind them - they are so oblivious to everyone else and just expect people to jump out of their way. It's really sad to see this anti-intellectual, anti-humanitarian trend in dangerous driving.