This week on Albany Weblog, Dan Van Riper takes the side of a person who chose to break the law and run a red-light on a traffic light, and was subsequently killed when her vehicle was t-boned by a car with the green light legally proceeding through the light.

Traffic lights turn red for a reason. That's because it's an extremely dangerous intersection, and a mechanical device is viewed as necessary to prevent a collision of vehicles. When the light goes red in one direction, it's because the light is green in another direction, allowing for the safe turning or crossing of cars in a busy intersection.

They don't put traffic lights everywhere. Probably 90% of our intersections on lesser traveled highways are controlled by yield or stop signs. But where lights exist, in our urban areas on highly traveled highways, they are there for a reason. It improves safety. They should be obeyed as such.

Everybody has a moral imperative to obey traffic signals for the public safety. When the light turns red, you must stop. It doesn't matter if your on a motorcycle, a car, a pickup truck, a semi-truck, or in this case, a bicycle. If you don't obey this law, then you put everybody at risk—especially yourself as your the one whose vehicle is cutting in the path of traffic that's been granted the right to move forward.

It's possible that Diva de Loayza would have survived if she had been in a car, rather then on a bicycle, running the traffic light. But she might have also been killed when the other car, legally making a turn on a green light, t-boned her car and went through the passenger's side door. Drivers are frequently killed in side-impact crashes. We will never know for sure.

Indeed, the victim, the person who had his car damaged by the red-light runner probably didn't even get any compensation from the criminal who didn't have liability insurance on his or her bicycle. Bicyclists should be required to have liability insurance on their bicycles, much like we have to have on our cars. The victim (the legally turning driver) should have been able to receive at least some compensation for an accident that was clearly not his fault.

Albany Weblog is right insofar as all drivers should use caution and prudence when driving—that's the law. Yet, a safe driver is only half of the equation. It takes two vehicles to have a collision, and indeed the person violating the law—failure to stop at a red light is mostly at fault.

Everybody must obey the rules of the road regardless of what vehicle they choose to use.