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My friend JH says a guy he knows contends that the traffic light, and traffic obeying their signals, is a hallmark of civilization.

https://g.co/doodle/9qhqxm

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Traffic signals are actually a pretty good sign (see what I did there?) of voluntary cooperation among humans. Laws generally depend on the idea that most of the people obey most of the laws most of the time, and that a relatively small portion of state or communal resources can be dedicated towards correcting the behavior of a tiny minority of outliers.

Given such a scenario, there are three big reasons to run a red light, and all of them are signs that "civilization" has broken down in some way:
1. You fear becoming a victim of violent crime, such as carjacking, if you stop and stay stopped until the light turns green.
2. You're an asshole, *and* you figure the state doesn't have enough resources to catch you, because:
2a. The state is broke, and traffic-law enforcement is way down on the list after catching people like armed robbers and such;
2b. The state and/or its agents are corrupt, and payment of a bribe will help you escape enforcement and penalties;
2c. So damn many people are doing it that it'd be impossible to catch them all, and your particular chances of getting caught are remote.
3. The light is broken. This includes detector-actuated lights that don't actuate for motor vehicles that are lawful to be driven on the road, such as motorcycles. Now, stuff does break, but if enough lights are broken and it happens often enough that red-light-running is a regular thing, well....

Interestingly, I can even point examples of places where the reasons you give apply:

1. You fear becoming a victim of violent crime, such as carjacking, if you stop and stay stopped until the light turns green.

Famously, South Africa is like this. (Caveat: I've driven in major cities in South Africa, including at night in Johanneburg and Durban, and never felt compelled to run a red light because I feared being carjacked. That said, just last week the Automobile Association of South Africa's Facebook page posted a series of #AntiHijackingTips‬, so it probably happens more often than in, say, Los Angeles.)

2. You're an asshole, *and* you figure the state doesn't have enough resources to catch you, because:
2a. The state is broke, and traffic-law enforcement is way down on the list after catching people like armed robbers and such;
2b. The state and/or its agents are corrupt, and payment of a bribe will help you escape enforcement and penalties;
2c. So damn many people are doing it that it'd be impossible to catch them all, and your particular chances of getting caught are remote.

Thailand used to be like this, although I wasn't sure which of the three possibilities it was. Most likely all three.

Interestingly between my first visit in the mid '90s and my next visit sometime early in the '00's, they fixed the problem and now people obey the lights. I'm not sure what changed, although I guess it may have also been enough of all three to change behavior. So positive progress is possible.

3. The light is broken. This includes detector-actuated lights that don't actuate for motor vehicles that are lawful to be driven on the road, such as motorcycles. Now, stuff does break, but if enough lights are broken and it happens often enough that red-light-running is a regular thing, well....

Nepal was like that. Even before the quake, this was a problem. The big intersection in Kathmandu right near where I was staying (where Kanti Path and Narayanhiti Path met, right at the corner of the US Embassy) had a whole complex of traffic lights that were "a gift from the Government of Japan". Trouble is, none of the lights ever lit.

This was a major intersection where two multilane divided roads crossed. So the local authorities simply assigned six police officers to the intersection: one in charge of traffic from each entering direction, one in the center on a raised stand, and one in charge of the other five officers. I never did figure out from watching them how it was all coordinated but they clearly had a system, because traffic at rush hour flowed quite well considering how heavy it was.

I have no idea what happened when they went away, which they must have done late at night but I was never around late enough to see.

It's not a coincidence that when my sister had to drive to work through Watertown at 5 AM the day of the damn manhunt for the damn bombers, she used the slowing down and rolling through red lights technique she had learned from the South African dude she was dating at the time.

Oh, and it is probably not a coincidence that my friend JH said this to me within a block of that intersection in Kathmandu.

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