Red means stop, you fuckwit.

My uncle Mike, a man who made much of my childhood a horrible joke by yanking my pants down in front of people, actually taught me something. While working, in high school, at his steel fabrication plant, he told me the secret of driving.

"Stop at yellow lights," he said. "You'll have fewer tickets, fewer wrecks and lower blood pressure."

I'd like to say that I heeded his words immediately, but that was not the case. I spent years afterwards tapping my dashboard as I went through yellows. And then, one day, I stopped.

I still coast through a yellow on occasion, usually when I'm a little too close to stop in time, but for the most part when the green light fades, I apply my brakes rather than gun the engine.

Every once in a while, though, I find myself going through a light and say, "That was a little close, pal."

And every time I chide myself for not stopping in time, I look into my rearview mirror and I see at least one, if not two or three other cars who have stopped running yellow lights and decided to run red ones.

I always wonder what exactly these people are thinking. Certainly they noticed the lights changing color. And since they're behind me, they have at least a couple more car lengths to slow down to stop. But they don't. They just run red lights, like that's what they're supposed to do.

There must have been one time, at some point in my last 12 years of driving, when going through a yellow light has saved me a lot of time. Perhaps I avoided a train. Maybe a wreck occurred and I didn't have to stop to go around it. But I know that most of the time, it doesn't really matter. Going 45 vs. 50 mph doesn't get you anywhere so much more quickly that it's worth the ticket and stopping vs. going doesn't seem to have much effect, either.

So, to the old lady in the crappy truck who decided that red means "why not?" and just barrelled through, I think it's funny that you got stuck at the next light with me and all the people who stopped at the light before caught up to us.