Red Light Deaths Are Up: Wonder Why?

red light

This news came across my local newspaper¹ not long ago: according to the AAA, "Deaths caused by drivers running red lights hit their highest rate in 10 years." Their numbers are for 2017; I can't imagine where we sit for 2019. I've lost count of the number of people I see on a daily basis ignoring red lights, stop signs, speed limits, and just about every other rule of the road.

The auto club's numbers say that about 950 people were killed in accidents caused by a driver running a light, up nearly 30% over 2012. The number say that about half (46%) of the deceased were in another car, while the driver at fault was killed about a third of the time (35%). One in 20 was a pedestrian or a cyclist.
A spokesperson for the National Safety Council opined that such accidents are preventable through the used of red light cameras. Ken Kolosh, manager of statistics for the Council, said that about 40% of drivers ignore red lights because they don't think they'll be caught by the police, while a national study by an insurance institute found that using the cameras reduces the incidence of drivers blowing through lights by – what a coincidence! – about 40 percent.

Some place the blame at distracted driving, but my personal observation of drivers who ignore stop signs (and I see a lot of them) is that they aren't any more distracted than drivers who actually stop. I have an opinion, though, and it's related to but not because of cell phone use:

We've become a society unaccustomed to waiting for anything. Want to chat with your sweetie? you don't have to wait until you get to a landline to call honeybunch, you just ask Siri to call. Need groceries? You don't have to clip coupons, write out a list, and take all that to the store. No, just ask Google to add coffee and Dove bars to the grocery list, call up your Kroger app on your smartphone, and someone will pull the order for you (for a small fee). Want a new pair of high-tops? Amazon will deliver them tomorrow - in some markets, before you go to sleep tonight!
Is it any wonder that some people have gotten the notion that they no longer need to wait for something as mundane as a red light or a stop sign?

¹ For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a newspaper is a physical journal of recent news and commentary, typically delivered to a subscriber's house on a daily basis. 

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