It's your problem too if you stop for a yellow and they don't. They may be 100% at fault, but you're delayed at best, at worst may be injured and may not have a driveable car, and they may not carry insurance, so you may have a large, uncompensated loss.
By 'unlikely to stop', I really mean 'unlikely to stop without striking your vehicle if you were to stop', so things like following too closely, clearly not paying attention (which is hard to tell in a quick glance, but maybe you noticed their lack of attention before and haven't had time or space to make space), has a large vehicle that needs more room to stop, etc. I likely wouldn't stop on a fresh yellow if there was a trash truck following me closely, for example. Even at the extreme where I end up running a fresh red, it's more likely a better result than getting rear ended by a vehicle that's around 10x the weight of mine.
>By 'unlikely to stop', I really mean 'unlikely to stop without striking your vehicle if you were to stop', so things like following too closely, clearly not paying attention (which is hard to tell in a quick glance, but maybe you noticed their lack of attention before and haven't had time or space to make space), has a large vehicle that needs more room to stop, etc. I likely wouldn't stop on a fresh yellow if there was a trash truck following me closely, for example. Even at the extreme where I end up running a fresh red, it's more likely a better result than getting rear ended by a vehicle that's around 10x the weight of mine.
At best that's an argument for not slamming on the brakes on a yellow if you already know that someone is following you, not for you to waste precious seconds diverting your attention to your rear view mirror and trying to make a judgment call. In critical moments like that you really can't afford to divert your attention for whatever is happening behind you, because there could be important stuff happening in front of you as well (eg. the car in front decides to slam on the brakes). If you're really in a situation where you think you can't safely come to a stop because there's a truck tailgating you, you really should get yourself out of that situation rather than trying to run the next yellow.
It's your problem too if you stop for a yellow and they don't. They may be 100% at fault, but you're delayed at best, at worst may be injured and may not have a driveable car, and they may not carry insurance, so you may have a large, uncompensated loss.
By 'unlikely to stop', I really mean 'unlikely to stop without striking your vehicle if you were to stop', so things like following too closely, clearly not paying attention (which is hard to tell in a quick glance, but maybe you noticed their lack of attention before and haven't had time or space to make space), has a large vehicle that needs more room to stop, etc. I likely wouldn't stop on a fresh yellow if there was a trash truck following me closely, for example. Even at the extreme where I end up running a fresh red, it's more likely a better result than getting rear ended by a vehicle that's around 10x the weight of mine.