[murrayh]

If you brake really hard, you're probably going to decelerate at around 7 m/s2.

25 MPH / 7 m/s2 ~= 1.6 seconds.

If you get caught running a redlight, you went through the intersection > 0.5 seconds after the light turned red, which is at least > 4 seconds after the light turned amber.

If you can't stop safely in that time, you weren't driving safely, or there were exceptional circumstances (eg. an ambulance, or a tailgating semi-trailer). The video footage of the event will exonerate you in those circumstances.

The total number of accidents increase, but the number of severe accidents decrease.

I love seeing people running red lights getting flashed. It makes my day.

[apotheon]

If you brake really hard, you may get rear-ended -- particularly if you're driving a gigantic beast of an SUV and the car behind you is a Geo Metro. I never assume someone's doing something wrong just based on the law; I also check for other factors like who's around them, what those other people are doing, whether the street is wet or oily, et cetera.

. . . and whether the speed limit in a particular area is artificially low to increase ticketing revenue.