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It's not the average drivers that need help, its the bad drivers. The ones who roll through a red light turning right, but look left the entire time, which is a very common way for pedestrians to get hit by cars. The system in the article would probably prevent tons of those accidents. I'm all for taking control away from bad drivers, even if that means we also have to take control away from the average and good drivers.

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And if they're running through a red light, that means the cross street has a green.

The pedestrian might be in slightly less danger if the car reacts properly. But then the car stops unexpectedly and the driver wonders what happens…and winds up stopped in an intersection for some nonzero amount of time.

Also, unless I'm visualizing this wrong (right turn on red hits a pedestrian in the crosswalk to his right that's parallel to his original direction of travel) the only way the pedestrian would have been in that crosswalk at all is if s/he was crossing against the light and crossing the path of cars going straight on a green.

The ped is travelling perpendicular to the original direction of the car (crossing from right to left from the cars point of view) and is most likely just stepping off the sidewalk.

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