Granted, I'm not in a different country, heck I'm not even in a different state, but for some reason, the "Rules of the Road" are very, very different here in Chicago. Well one is anyways.
Here, red doesn't mean stop. It means that you still have a few more seconds to go through the intersection. We thought that maybe it was just something that a few annoying people were doing, but now that we have been here almost a month, we realize EVERYONE does this. When making a left hand turn on green, but without an arrow at an intersection, you are supposed to be out in the middle of the intersection (and apparently the car after the next car as well) while waiting to turn. Therefore, once the signal turns red, there are still at least 2-3 cars going through the intersection. One would think then that it means that the other on-coming traffic doesn't go right away when the light turns green, not true. They go as well.
When we went to visit Mark and Laura last weekend just about 20 miles away, Laura explained to us that this normal and if we don't do it, people will get furious about it. They do. They honk, alot. However, I've been driving for over 10 years and this just isn't what you are supposed to do, not only that, but I swear an accident is going to happen. WE DON'T EVEN LIVE IN THE CITY!!
I haven't decided yet if I'll adopt this new way of driving or not. I just know with my luck, the one time I do it, I'll either get a ticket or into an accident.
