And then into the full bustle of Palo Alto, at the corner of J.Serra, Page Mill and Foothills Expressway. The lights here give a couple of left-turn cycles to inbound Page Mill before letting us go, and since I just missed my arrow, I had lots of time to pull the camera out of my pannier and snap the foothills.

The first time I came to work through this intersection, I watched the outbound PM light turn yellow, and figured it was my turn to go; a few more cars ran the early red, pause, then my left turn.

As I made my graceful arc through the center of this big intersection, I realised two cars were coming at me, somewhere around 50 mph. I was a few seconds from being a tragic news story, my 30+ years of bicycling experience in traffic turned into a grease spot and a chalk outline.

So now I wait for the green arrow a bit more patiently.