I took traffic school in Utah and have been driving for over 20 years. My wife took traffic school in Delaware and was taught the same thing: If the light is (unprotected) green and you're turning left, you can and should pull out into the intersection and "block traffic" as my old instructor put it. You then can turn left when there's a safe gap, or at least turn left after the light turns yellow then red. I was taught this is important because if you don't pull out and traffic is constantly coming from the other direction, you may never get to turn.

So, I was doing this waiting to turn left into my neighborhood today. Light turns yellow, then red, and oncoming cars are still blazing through. I'm thinking "WTH is up with all these red light runners?" but they still don't stop. After several seconds of this, I realize I'm in a bad place and decide to back up to get behind the stop line. It was 20+ seconds until my light turned back to green, and oncoming traffic never stopped the whole time.

Are Houtonians/Texans taught this rule in traffic school? I ask because I've noticed many people here that do not pull out on an unprotected green. I've only lived here 1.5 years. This light behavior scared me today and I'm really wondering why this happened.