A unique, 5-way intersection at Washington St. and Eighth Ave means drivers can run a red light and likely get away with it.

San Diego commuter and Redditor /u/Spordee was confused when, upon reaching this SD intersection, three drivers breezed through a red light without stopping.

And, it’s not like they were speeding, either. They brazenly and casually drove through.

/u/Spordee shared dashcam footage from earlier last year (June 6, 2024) to the /r/IdiotsInCars subreddit showing exactly that.

Check out their footage below with the original Reddit thread linked here.

The incident occurred at the intersection of Washington St. and 8th Ave. (Exact location on Google Maps linked here.)

As OP’s dashcam footage shows, she approaches the aforementioned intersection and comes to a stop.

A driver in a gray Toyota RAV-4 can be seen running the red light, a one-off incident at the time it would seem.

Then, several seconds after the red light, two more vehicles run the red.

What’s going on?

A bird’s eye view and a screenshot from this POV from Google Maps shows what’s going on.

This is a unique, 5-way intersection with an off-ramp from the 163 merging onto Washington.

With traffic coming off the 163 getting a green light, traffic running parallel to the off-ramp gets a red light.

But, as /u/Stomicron points explains,

“If the light is red but oncoming cars have a green, then there is no threat of cross traffic, and the red is just to let the offramp traffic merge from the right. So locals probably figured out what they can get away with.”

Regardless, running a red is running a red, whether there’s no threat of a crash or not.

San Diego County doesn’t play around with red light tickets, violaters subject to a fine of close to $500 in some cases.

$490 ticket for a running a red light!?!
byu/lanina619 insandiego

“Better to be predictable than polite. Run the light, since everyone else does! /s,” /u/Cat_Amaran sarcastically commented.

“This goes to show the ratio of law-abiding citizens vs unlawful behavior in today’s society,” /u/u1t1m8rx mused.

“lol that second pass was crazy,” /u/Previous_Refuse_2902 added.

While you can probably get away with running a red light here once or twice, it fosters a bad habit that’ll result in getting a citation or worse, into an accident.

It’s one bad habit with no upsides in your immediate future.