You know the light I’m talking about. At four in the morning, you’re driving down a flat desolate highway. You can see forever in every direction and are entirely sure that you are completely alone. Out of nowhere, and for no good reason, appears a red light. You stop and wait for it to turn green. It doesn’t. You know it’s completely safe to run the light. There are no cars coming – you can see that with your own eyes. And yet you wait. A tumbleweed blows past you as you ponder the possibility of some sort of police sting operation to catch late-night red-light runners. By now you are cursing yourself for being such a law-abiding fraidy-cat. You tell yourself that the Dukes of Hazzard would run the light (yes, even Daisy). Minutes later, just as you’re about to almost gather up enough guts to start thinking about maybe getting the courage to perhaps go through the red, it turns green. You’ve wasted some time, burned unnecessary gasoline and proven yourself to be a pussy. All because of a little red traffic light. Multiply this frustration by a billion if you have to pee really really badly. The Europeans have a system where at 4 a.m. lights such as these, become flashing reds, to be treated as a stop sign: stop, look, go. No wonder they look more relaxed than us.

-angryman.ca