> the traffic lights turn yellow even when the yellow light has not become solid
I'm sorry, but this sentence doesn't make sense to me. Did you mean:
> the traffic lights turn yellow even when the "do-not-cross" signal is still flashing
If not, could you explain? If so, where do you live that the lights do this? I've never seen that behavior (although I'm the first to say I haven't lived many places).
Then, there's also the issue that many pedestrians are still in the process of crossing when the hand turns red.