Now that I finally got around to signing up for a Zipcar account, I decided to look for driving tips in a city like Boston. I found this book that says:

Have you honked your horn in the last hour? Do you relish finding fire hydrant parking spots? Do you think a left turn from the right lane is perfectly acceptable? Does a red light make you speed up? If you answered no to any of these questions, be forewarned: You'll never survive Boston's wild streets.

Awesome. I've noticed that a yellow light here means "go" and the first 5 seconds of a red light means "go faster." This means there are residual vehicles in the middle of an intersection when some cars get the green light signal. But of course, you get honked if you don't anticipate this change to the green light and zoom off a couple of seconds prior to the change. But if you'll remember, you can't take off because of the cars stuck in the middle of the intersection. So you get honked at anyway, and really, it seems like a lose-lose situation. Maybe Zipcar was a bad idea for me...