Would that light actually stop anyone? In France and Italy, traffic lights are just recommendations. We once got honked at for waiting at a red light when there was no cross traffic.
The German equivalent of "life with no chance of parole" would be "Sicherheitsverwahrung" (preventive detention, consecutive to the life sentence) which is an extremely dodgy instrument that is probably in violation of the constitution and the international human rights charter if you look too closely but still used when punishing people who probably should instead be treated for difficult mental health problems.
But I admit that makes for a less funny joke.
I don't know about Italy, but in France red traffic lights are absolutely respected by everyone (almost, obviously there will always be people who run red lights).
You'd lose 4 of your permit's 12 points (6 points if you're a young driver) for running a red light, and depending on the policeman's judgement your license might get suspended for up to three years. It's among the highest class of violation you can make.
If you got honked at a red light, I suspect there was something you didn't notice, like a blinking orange light allowing your lane to pass, or something like that. Or just the driver behind you honking by error while fiddling with something in their car.
30 km/h and even 50 km/h are respected pretty much nowhere except where there are stationary traffic cameras. I ran across an article recently (can't seem to find it again) where 90% of German drivers voluntarily admitted to not keeping to the speed limit.
For most people, breaking the speed limit does not seem a big deal. Then they run over a kid and say "I didn't mean to do that"! Well, they did in a way - keeping to the speed limit is not hard.