If you don't like red light cameras, don't run red lights.

It might be your “right” to speed, but it’s my right to not get T-boned by you in the intersection.

Here was my friend’s argument:

It’s my right to speed. It’s the job of the police to catch me. If they don’t catch me, then lucky me. — Sorta Friend

I guess I just don’t quite understand that mentality. Maybe I’m not enough of a speed freak or I’m just not 23 any longer and don’t have to “prove” anything to anyone. But it’s more about safety and the fact that red light runners kill a huge number of people (huge meaning anything more than zero) every year.

Why do people run red lights?

Running late, just didn’t have time to wait.
Just not really interested in obeying the law.
Live by their own laws and running red lights isn’t in there.
Honestly didn’t notice it was red.
Drunk and wasn’t sure if it was yellow, orange or red. Wait, does orange even exist?

If you know someone who has been killed (or injured) by a red light runner, you probably have very little sympathy (if any) for the guy who says “it’s my right to speed.” Is it just that mentality that’s anti-establishment or anti-something that wants to prove that they can stand up and make their own rules? I don’t know. Maybe I’m just too much of a law-abiding, goody-two-shoes boring citizen. But I also just simply don’t want to get broadsided by you at 47 miles per hour when you’re exercising your right to not get caught.

Maybe that’s it. I don’t really care about you getting caught or breaking laws, maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe I like to think that the law was probably made with good intentions (again, maybe I’m just naive) to prevent accidents and tragic deaths. Maybe I just don’t want you to kill someone, accidentally, and then sorta-apologize because you were just exercising your right to do whatever you wanted.

Here’s the thing. While you’re exercising your right to die, someone else is trying to exercise their right to live and I don’t think it’s very polite to influence theirs. If you want to run your light and smash into a tree and die, OK, I get it, that was your decision. It’s when your decisions affects others’ decisions that it starts to take a toll.