to have gone through 3 sets of red lights?

[drivingisanightmare]

Roadworks have been on my street since last November. There are 3 sets of temporary traffic lights meaning if you time it badly you add 15 minutes to your journey.

morning sickness is dreadful just now. I needed to go to Asda fifteen minutes away.

First I was stuck behind someone doing 25 mph in a 40 zone. Then on the way back someone was stopping all the time for no reason. Then came to a road with speed bumps and someone was stopping completely dead before tackling each speed bump. Then all the lights were on red. Nothing was coming so I went through them all. Then got home and vomited.

BU?

YABU for all the reasons mentioned

is this baby a pfb?

why would anyone be envious of someone running through 3 red lights?

anyway, it's not the red lights with no-one coming that have concerned me so much as the fact she was retching and could have vomited at any point. even if she had been on a road with no lights or stops, just a straight road and driving I would still say she was very irresponsible to carry on driving whilst retching.

I was talking about benefit cheat threads, not red light runners. It was probably an irrelevant detail though.

Jumping, what has this being the OP's pfb (or otherwise) got to do with the price of fish?

The 'roolz' aren't always there to constrain us though, they are there to keep everyone safe. The OP put her needs above everyone else's and that makes what she did very selfish. There is no condoning her behaviour.

I'm a pragmatist. I generally see no harm in breaking rules if it doesn't affect or hurt anyone else.

I wouldn't have a problem with someone running a red light cos they thought it was safe, IF they could make a good and considered assessment.

OP couldn't, at all. She wasn't safe to drive that car anywhere, let alone thought three red lights. She was choking, retching, crying, panicking. She wouldn't have noticed a cyclist, a pedestrian, a child, a motorbike. She was on the verge if bing sick and her vision must have been very obscured because she was crying. She ran the lights with complete disregard and only after did she decide it was OK, cos she hadn't hit anyone.

Either she ran the lights without being able to make sure it was safe. Or she wasn't really crying, retching, choking and panicking. Both can't be true.

I don't condone it, but I can understand it. She would deserve the fine and the points (if caught) but she doesn't deserve the kicking she got here. 'Bloody stupid and dangerous - don't do it again', fine. But not the wailing, the gnashing of teeth, the melodramatic links to reports of genuinely horrific incidents that were entirely different, the hand wringing about her unborn child, about non-existent children playing on the roadworks...

Well, MN has a tendency to be dramatic but I see the point about the non-existent children. It was that the OP's judgement was impaired due to her sickness, so she may not have seen everything.

When a society is so fixated on rules that it doesn't have the capacity to empathise (not condone - just to employ intelligence and imagination to seek to understand how and why a law was broken) and sometimes cut an offender a little slack, then it's in trouble

Absolutely ridiculous! The rules are there to protect society. There is no empathy when someone makes a selfish decision to disobey them. The fact still remains that through the retching the driver couldn't be 100% sure the road was clear ahead. There are no shortcuts involved in driving. I don't understand what she did, because as others have said they've pulled over and puked whilst driving. There was a choice to be made and she took the dangerous option.

The stories I linked actually happened. If you think that's melodramatic then more fool you. Non-existent children/people on the roads? They're all non-existent until they're run over.

One red light - understandable. Three? Really??

JenaiMorris

OP could see the way ahead was clear. She panicked but I doubt she'd have jumped those lights if there had been something approaching

The OP panicked - entering an irrational psychological state, impaired judgement, yadda yadda.

The very reason that jumping lights is dangerous is when a driver wants it to be clear - their brain justifies the action that it believes is benefitting the individual (getting home quickly to throw up).

The human brain very often sees what it expects to see or sees what it wants to see (it's all pattern recognition at the end of the day); this is why cyclists and motorcyclists are often at risk because drivers expect to see cars, so they are not expecting the shape of cycles or motorcycles. The brain overlays the pattern it wants to see.

The impaired judgement that led to the OP jumping the lights rather than pulling over would have rendered her less able to evaluate that the road was actually clear, I concede that.

Fake, those links were completely OTT. They referred to wilfully dangerous driving and not to someone experiencing a sudden and severe wave of nausea. I very much doubt the OP was driving at 105mph and I expect she has a licence.

Yes I linked them on purpose because the OP was still trying to justify her actions saying the road was clear. I'm glad I did too.

I think that's the very important point. whenever there is an accident and someone at fault- they always felt justified at the time for whatever the action was. "there was nothing coming" "I know that road so well" " I thought I could make it in time" "those lights take ages to change" "I needed to get to the school for 3" (happened to my exp- was hit by a woman rushing and cutting corners on a windy road whose first line to him when she got out of the car was "do we need to involve the police- i'm late to collect my kids from school")

when I was pregnant with ds2 one night coming back from the cinema I made two quite serious mistakes in driving, the first one was I drove across a zebra crossing without even realising it was there then within minutes I ran a red light and exp then said "what the hell is wrong with you- do you know you went straight over a zebra crossing aswell?" (I didn't until he said) I pulled the car over straight away, very panicked and worried incase there was something going on with my eyes that I didn't realise and he drove home. I didn't drive for almost a week after that until I had been to the optician and had the all clear. all we could put it down to was a stupid lapse in concentration for some unknown reason. I was really cautious after that because I was aware of how 'unaware' I had been of my mistakes that night. but at the time It just was not safe for me to drive home that night so I pulled over straight away.

Stupid and selfish OP.

And your justifications of your actions make you sound even worse. I am genuinely that you are trying to make this seem ok somehow.

My 11 yo cousin was mown down by a car jumping red lights as he crossed the road to meet his mum after school (obviously he didn't look properly either - I tell my DC that the green man alone is not a signal to cross). He is permanently mentally and physically disabled. It is just luck that the OP didn't do the same.

As you know, but still seem unwilling to wholly accept, YWBU OP. Don't drive if you are not feeling well enough to do so safely and legally. You should have stopped when retching and feeling too ill to take notice of traffic lights (which makes me deeply sceptical that you can have been completely sure that all was clear - cyclists, kids, motorbikes....).

Sorry about your morning sickness but hope that you have had a reality check that even when pregnant you have to behave considerately to others (by not driving dangerously) and obey laws that are there to protect all of us.

Personally, I found my spatial judgment went awry when I was pg and after a couple of incidents of thinking "blimey, where did that car come out from?" I clicked it was me not being up to driving safely, so I stopped, despite personal inconvenience. You should do the same if necessary.

Jenai if continuing through a second and third set of red lights when retching is not "wilful dangerous driving" then I would like to know exactly what is. It was clearly dangerous and it was clearly a deliberate decision.

you think morning sickness is hard?

try living daily with the consequences to your child, like we have to day in and day out, of a selfish fuck wit like you who caused a crash.

I am part if a group of parents whose dds were all badly injured because someone else broke the law.

it's a hard hard road. for some its totally life changing and life limiting.

you should be ashamed of yourself. stay off the road if you arnt well enough to drive responsibility.

'Extenuating circumstances' jenai lol!!!

Really?

So sorry for you, thebody I'm glad the OP's behaviour didn't have those consequences this time.

thanks and me too!!

and Voice so very sorry to hear about your nephew.

it's beyond sad xx

The OP doesnt suggest a sudden onset of nausea, but one that was on her entire journey home. Not a momentary lapse of judgment but a considered one. Totally unexcusable.

Red lights are there because it isn't just the OP out on the public high-way. there are other people with no visibility or understanding of what was happening to the OP, inside her little metal box that is her car. People wouldn't be able to make a split second interpretation as OP ploughs through the red lights..

Its all very well doing an after the fact analysis of how it all worked out fine and how no harm was done, which is probably what the OP was hoping for. What kind of message does that give? "Ahh, don't worry dearey, you know you did wrong, but that's OK, as long as you had a good excuse, you can be the exception to the rule"... thats just giving license to break the law in the future.

It's frightening that a few people on here just don't get the difference between the laws that do need to be black and white (so people cant give some "cock and bull story" in a police statement, it just won't wash) and other laws that may require some additional context and facts overlaid based on circumstances. Introducing benefits fraud into this debate is a ludicrous red-herring!

When a law is there to protect innocent life, thats when it is in B&W, so people don't have any doubt about skipping red lights.

Having given this some thought I am hoping that the OP gets a fine and some points (fingers crossed there were cameras on at least one set of lights - after all she did run THREE sets).

Maybe this would teach her a valuable lesson and keep her from killing someone just because she felt sick