Earlier quoted context omitted.
Driving through a yellow light is not illegal. Also, is shortening yellows actually making the roads safer or is it just a way to increase revenues? Seems like one likely cause of shorter yellow lights is that more people make harder stops at intersections, result in more rear-end collisions.
In many places, such as where I grew up in Ohio, the language regarding yellow lights is to "clear the intersection", and that if you are able to stop, you must not enter an intersection when presented with a yellow light. In other words, treat it like a red light, unless you absolutely cannot stop. Of course in practice most folks will go for it if they think they can clear the intersection in time. Some may even ac…
If you are in doubt about whether you can safely stop when the light turns yellow (and you have very little time to make that judgment), it's much safer to err on the side of running it.
The longer the yellow light is, the more likely you are to be able to correctly judge whether you can stop on time. The shorter yellow lights are in your area, the more likely you are to to slam on the brakes to avoid running the red light. Slamming on the brakes is far more dangerous than running a freshly changed red light, to say nothing of running a yellow.