I have noted over the past few months some drivers brake when approaching traffic lights on green!
Is this a new practise, are the drivers unsure that a green light means go**, if safe to do so**, are such drivers hoping for a rear end shunt insurance claim?
Anybody else experienced this?
Cheers
Keith
Back in the day my company sent all its drivers on a defensive driving course, presumably to keep their insurance premiums lower.
The ex-copper who took me round told me to do just that AND look both ways. If someone else is running a red light you need to know about it. He said traffic lights are a potential hazard, even if on green.
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Well, some bought Platinum Quartz or Zircon sand, so maybe 
Jokes aside, you’d think if they were colour blind they’d have adapted to what green/red is though. I think colourblind drivers/pedestrians might rely on position, the ‘red’ is the top light of the signal etc, green the bottom one etc. I’d imagine too there are different spans/types of colourblindness and, (see what I do here) like most things in life, it isn’t always black and white.
Still, interesting topic, makes you think of something you might not have before- the essence of a good post 
Automatic Emergency Braking?
Electric cars will show a brake light when in regen even if you are not touching the brake pedal. If they are using ‘one pedal’ mode this will happen more often and can be confusing to following vehicles. Just easing off the accelerator slightly will trigger a brake light. So may be it was an electric vehicle?
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Cruise control keeping speed maybe ?
I am colourblind. Even though I struggle to identify lots of colours, traffic lights are never a problem. The tones are very different apart from anything else.
Old friend of mine was colour blind. I used to love playing snooker against him! 
Are these the same drivers that insist that 40mph is the blanket speed limit, along A-road and city backstreet alike?
Agreed. There are idiots everywhere.
My old Humber Hawk was written off by such an idiot jumping the lights undertaking three queues of waiting cars, he was in the left turn lane. He hit my car square across the rear wheel arch, and spun 30cwt of solid Rootes metal around the traffic lamp post on the exit road’s central reservation island .
He was already on six points and ended up with a custodial sentence for dangerous driving, after taking into account how he had been driving and cutting up other cars before hitting me.
It was a bit like a garden secateurs trying to cut a thick branch. 6" dent in the passenger door behind me, flat print of a Sunbeam Alpine on the passenger side.
If I had been in our Mini woody traveller it would have been cut in half and I’d not be writing this today.
@Keith_W - is there a pattern to the vehicles being driven that you’ve observed? Are they all fairly new (within the last 3 years) or a mixture of ages?
And is this something you’ve noticed over a variety of different junctions, or just in one particular place?
lol 
No, just road blind.
I have not noted any particular car/SUV braking before continuing to drive through a green lights.
I will pay attention to the ages of the vehicles.
However, I have never seen a van or truck driver do this
Most notable junction J34 A683/M6 I use this route most days.
My only other thought that springs to mind, is whether certain drivers are thinking there may be speed monitoring across the junction, and they’re worried that their speed is too high? A traffic light speed camera in effect.
That’s a 30mph limit around that junction, if I remember correctly?
Traffic lights are a hazard, just like roundabouts, junctions, crossings, parked vehicles, bends etc. And should be approached as such. Unless I’m going slowly anyway I think I would usually ease off and maybe even cover the brake until I can see it’s clear if there’s no visibility.
I watch them at Handy Cross ‘roundabout’ in High Wycombe. You can have 2 or 3 cars cross in front of you at 40mph when your light has just gone green.
My son in law is colour blind as was my uncle John. I don’t think it has caused either of them to shoot red lights.
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Seem to be more newish cars sat at the lights with full brakelights on too, is that an electric car feature?
Yes, there is a 30 mph limit at this junction.
No speed monitoring across the junction, but your thinking that there may be speed monitoring is certainly valid.
Speed monitoring from J34 A683 East is a challenge, they keep my Tom Tom working over time as the cameras are constantly changing from variable to static, 30,40,50 mph limits. A further hazard, an assortment of potholes & even a Mariana trench. I you travel the A683 from the M6 to
Kirkby Lonsdale you have been warned!
Yes. Even on some ‘normal’ cars if the hand brake is applied automatically the brake lights remain on.
I think it’s just a modern car feature. We have a Mazda 2 Hybrid with an electric parking brake and an automatic ‘hold’ feature. When hold is active the car stays put when you brake to a halt, with the brake lights on.
Drivers of automatic cars generally sit with foot on brake if they have to stop.
just automatics? Pretty much everyone does, whatever the transmission. If not, in a manual they are instead often rocking back bad forth , holding the car at the biting point for the hole duration of a traffic light sequence!