Wow. Lemme guess. Ultra-conservative Republican?
Simple question: If they set yellow light delays in your area to be so short that the yellow light changes before you can count to "one" out loud, would you blame yourself for running all the red lights, or do you think you might start blaming some external cause?
If you could get off the moralistic "I'm superior to everyone else" high-horse tirade for a moment you might be able to open your eyes to the fact that yellow light delay timing has been routinely shortened at traffic stops where red light cameras are installed. There are documented cases of the delay being shortened from something reasonable and safe like 4 seconds to something completely UNREASONABLE and UNSAFE like 0.9 seconds. Yes, that's zero-point-nine seconds. This has two side effects. First, it makes it almost physically impossible to successfully come to a safe stop from the posted speed limit without running the red light. Your moral fortitude or superior driving ability will not help you do the impossible. At least, not safely.
Second, after local drivers (even morally-superior drivers just like you!) get a few red light tickets in the mail, it strongly encourages one of two behaviors (or both): (1) Approaching all traffic lights at a crawl in order to have some chance of avoiding a red light ticket, or (2) slamming on the brakes as hard as possible the instant you see the yellow light. Both of these behaviors, in direct response to the shortened yellow light delays, have drastically increased the risk of both rear-ending and t-boning accidents at traffic lights where red light cameras are installed. Of course I guess it also encourages drivers to slam on the gas and try to get through the intersection if they happen to think they're close enough and can't stop in time. So, short yellow light delays are bad news all around.
Couple this with the fact that this shortening of the yellow light delay provides an increased revenue stream to both the local law enforcement department and THE COMPANY THAT INSTALLED AND RUNS THE RED LIGHT CAMERAS, and you have what some people like to refer to as a HIGHLY CORRUPT MONEY GRAB that just makes red light stops far more dangerous than they ever have been. The accident statistics at RLC stops speak for themselves. An increase in accidents are in fact being CAUSED by the installation of red light cameras and the corresponding shortening of yellow light delays, and the corresponding behaviors that are a DIRECT response to the new traffic signal conditions.
This is absolutely NOT just a bunch of bad drivers complaining about getting tickets and blaming the red light cameras for their own bad behavior. Believe me, I'll be happy to go on all day about bad drivers and the stupidity of insisting we both have the right and that it's perfectly safe to constantly drive 15 MPH above any posted speed limits and follow too closely at freeway speeds and other things like that, but this is not a case of bad drivers being stupid. This is a case of humans being human and physics being physics and corrupt and unsafe law enforcement practices being corrupt and unsafe law enforcement practices. And we need to put this unsafe practice to a stop or put some very tight regulations on how the departments are allowed to set up an RLC stop, such as mandating that they absolutely WILL NOT under any circumstances shorten the yellow light delay. That delay should be entirely up to the D.O.T. traffic safety studies and I don't know how anybody got away with changing it in the first place.
And you know, the world is not just a black & white choice between ultra-draconian law enforcement and total anarchy. There is usually a place somewhere in the middle where things actually work out pretty well. Your attitude reminds of the classic Reagan-era Bloom County strip where they had a hooded executioner posted at the checkout counter of a supermarket to execute people for silly things like squeezing the Charmin. But hey, I'm all for jailing the corrupt creeps in law enforcement who ILLEGALLY shortened the yellow light delays below well-established D.O.T. safety minimums so they could make themselves and the red light camera companies more money while completely disregarding actual traffic safety concerns.
If red light cameras have a place in our traffic system at all they should be used only to monitor traffic patterns and single out those few drivers that are actually bad drivers, who routinely fail to stop at red lights or have a bad habit of always speeding up instead of slowing down on yellow. Those drivers should be identified and sent to remedial training or have their licenses revoked if they continue to endanger people with bad driving.
But if we had acceptable and federally mandated standards of yellow light delay timing, especially with the new timer displays I've seen appearing that tell you exactly how much time you have before the light turns red, I have a strong suspicion that speeding up on yellow can be almost completely eliminated. A reliable and reasonable yellow light delay would automatically condition drivers to have a correct and reasonable response to seeing a yellow light. And as has been pointed out by others, the very simple addition of a slight 1-2 second delay where both sides of the intersection are red would do wonders for reducing t-boning accidents, especially in bad weather conditions.