This afternoon we pushed the button to activate the light on minor cross
street of a four lane road. The light changed, the traffic stopped, or
so we thought, and we proceed across. About half way across, a Toyota
Corolla blew through the red light at high speed, about 12 feet in front
of me. If I had been two seconds or so faster it'd have been the end.

So I was thinking that it really was much more dangerous to cross on the
green, trusting that the cross traffic would stop, than to simply wait
for a break in traffic and run the red light.

This is a map of the location in Cupertino:
"http://i34.tinypic.com/2n9etqs.jpg" and it's a heavily used crossing by
high school students.

I think the driver was focusing on the next traffic light, a few hundred
feet south, though the left lane of southbound traffic stopped and you'd
think she'd have wondered about why the traffic in the left lane wasn't
moving.