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by acdha 133 days ago
Here are two daily occurrences contradicting that:

1. The driver realizes out of their peripheral vision that the light has changed but wants to finish the urgent TikTok they’re watching so they accelerate, often rapidly, without looking around and fails to notice other road users. I’ve seen people hit other cars because they didn’t notice the car ahead of them had stopped accelerating due to congestion, and countless times where they almost or did hit someone (fortunately never fatally) in the crosswalk because they were in “green means go mode” before they were fully back to looking outside their vehicle.

2. The driver continues to look at their phone and fails to notice when the light changes. Someone behind them gets mad and does something dangerous to pass such as driving in the opposite traffic lane, a bike lane, or in a pedestrian space.

Yes, many people do look at phones without hitting anyone but that’s like saying it’s okay to celebrate by firing a gun in the air because only a few people get hit. It’s a statistical certainty that the more times someone engages in unsafe activity, the more people will be on the unlucky side of those odds. If you have a couple million daily car trips in London, even 99.9999% safety means someone getting hurt every day.