It seems obvious to me that running red lights has more severe risks than people stopping more abruptly at yellow lights. And since it's not illegal to slow dow

It seems obvious to me that running red lights has more severe risks than people stopping more abruptly at yellow lights. And since it's not illegal to slow down for a yellow light, but it is to tailgate someone, well... just don't do that, then. There are plenty of ways to make it more obvious how long the yellow light will last and whether you can make it through before it turns red. The all-red grace period that wiki article mentions also makes sense to me. I would say it is better to trade red-light-running collisions for yellow-light-stopping collisions. Just because you can't eliminate all collisions doesn't mean you do nothing. That's letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.