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A friend in his mid-thirties picked me up one day to drive me somewhere. We approached a red light. He slowed down only slightly, and turned right without even looking to the left. I told him that he had just committed a severe moving violation. He said he thought you could always turn right on a red light.

“Yes,” I said, “if you come to a complete stop first, and look to the left to give way to oncoming traffic.”

Once, I was leaving the UF campus. I had come to a complete stop at a red light. When the light turned green, I prepared to drive straight across University Avenue. I crossed the two east-bound lanes, passed a paved median and then was crossing the two westbound lanes. Bang! I was broadsided by a car that had run a red light.

I don’t think mine was a rare case. Gainesville is a city where, if you care about your life and limb, you will never proceed from a standing stop when your light turns green without looking carefully to the left and right. And I forgot to do it that day. Gainesville would probably win the prize for the most red-light runners in the nation. Maybe it’s because we don’t synchronize our lights in this town or that there are not enough wide north-south and east-west thoroughfares to move the traffic. Maybe it’s because it used to take you ten minutes and it now takes you twenty or more minutes to get anywhere. People are just desperate and anxious to save time by making whatever green light that appears on the horizon. But I don’t want anyone to save time at the cost of my life.

Therefore, I applaud what seems to be the City Commission’s intent to install cameras at busy intersections, and give a private company a commission for collecting fines from red-light runners. If the light stays yellow long enough for the maximum speed allowed, there is no reason to run a red light, other than impatience or contempt for the law. I truly hope that the Commission eventually places the cameras at every intersection with a traffic light. And when that is done, they can put cameras at every corner with a stop sign – for those people who have never learned that you don’t roll through stop signs. And, if we could add about 200 more traffic cops to the force, maybe we could then proceed, also, against the people who never give a right turn or left turn signal.

The best advice I ever got about driving was from an old editor who said, “When you’re behind the wheel, always expect the other driver to do some dam-fool thing.” Good advice for Gainesville streets. It’s a jungle out there.

This is Radio Ralph with a comment at mid-week for AM850.