It's interesting how strong conditioning can be, but it's also interesting how easily things change. By the time these kids are older, the odds are good one of them will smoke.
When my girlfriend's cousins were little, they would gasp and shriek every time I lit a smoke. Now they're little teenage chimneys, huddled outside every family function.
Haha! Great story at the lemonade stand. They probably told their parents, and were never let outside alone again.
For what it's worth, I ran a red light yesterday--not entirely deliberately, but not quite unknowingly either. And sometimes, when there's no one around, I'll just go. But you're right, each time, I think some massive boot is going to stomp from the sky and crush me. And running red lights as a general practice is just damn dangerous.
Family events'll do that: encourage you to take up smoking, so you have an excuse to stand outside the house and not have to explain to Aunt Margaret again why you don't play the clarinet anymore.
So Ogged, I just got the coolest bike, and I've been doing a lot of city cycling lately. It took me a long time to get used to rolling through stop-sign intersections and to biking (after stopping, usually) through red lights. Thing is, motorists often expect you to barrel through stop-sign intersections -- and if you don't, it can confuse and anger them. I can hardly imagine going through a red, though. I can count on three fingers the number of times I've waited several minutes, figured the light was broken, and just driven through.
That is, I can hardly imagine going through a red in a car.
Well, 1) I don't do it so often; especially in my overpoliced suburb 2) I think I just do it occasionally to establish that I'm not a completely programmed drone, which, of course, I am. Maybe I'll just quit it.
Bikes are a tough case, because, as you say, the law dictates one set of rules, but expectations and common sense another. I've completely given up biking (even though I live a mile from work), because I'm convinced someone will plow into me.
I think I just do it occasionally to establish that I'm not a completely programmed drone
I see the release module is functioning properly.
That really isn't such a new thing in SF. When I lived there, if I drove the speed limit down Sunset when the traffic wasn't too heavy, all the lights would be green. Too fast or too slow, I got a red.
Julie - the difference is that the lights on Sunset and a few other streets (Great Highway comes to mind) are timed, and those who find the right speed are rewarded. This evil device is put there just to punish people for doing, say 37 in a 35. It's kind of like those obnoxious flashing speed limit/your speed signs on University Ave. and Embaradero Rd. in Palo Alto, only with the ability to compel you to stop.
At least they don't issue speeding tickets like they do in Britain.