drive through the lights or a red light

[joham]

If someone breaks the traffic rules and drives through when the light is red, what other expressions can we use to describe this situation?

make the lights / a red light?
jump the lights / a red light?

Thank you in advance.

 

[Tdol]

Either with jump- to me, if you make the lights, you speed up to get through when they're still green.

 

[Barb_D]

Id' say you ran a red light.

(If you "jump the light" that means to me that you didn't wait for it to really turn green. It was still red when you started going, perhaps because you saw it had turned yellow for the other direction and no one was coming.)

 

[bhaisahab]

Id' say you ran a red light.

(If you "jump the light" that means to me that you didn't wait for it to really turn green. It was still red when you started going, perhaps because you saw it had turned yellow for the other direction and no one was coming.)

In BrE it's "jump" where Americans say "ran".

 

[kfredson]

In BrE it's "jump" where Americans say "ran".

That is very interesting. Would you also use "jump" if you were to go through the light just after it turned red? That is how we Yanks use "ran." If we went through the red just before it turned red we might say "jumped." That is much less common, however. We are normally runners and not jumpers!

 

[bhaisahab]

That is very interesting. Would you also use "jump" if you were to go through the light just after it turned red? That is how we Yanks use "ran." If we went through the red just before it turned red we might say "jumped." That is much less common, however. We are normally runners and not jumpers!

Yes, if we go through a light just after it turns red, we have jumped it. I don't think I've ever heard anyone in the UK say that they had run a red light. It seems we are jumpers rather than runners. Incidentally in France they "grille le rouge", literally "burn the red".

 

[BobK]

... whereas, in order to get to the lights before they turn red, one might 'burn rubber'.

b