But I can't see why you have to stop any more abruptly for the first line than the second. The amber light duration is fixed at three seconds. Unless the traffic lights are directly after a bend in the road such that you can't even see them for three seconds as you approach the junction, there should really be not much more problem in stopping smoothly and under control in 23 metres than there is in 26 metres.
And if the light changes when you're too close to the junction to stop at the first line because some eejit is tailgating you - do you really think they're expecting you to stop at the next one, or are they expecting you to speed up and shoot the junction so they can do it too? It must surely be a very small number of occasions where it's risky to stop for the first line yet all that much safer to stop for the second.
Are you talking to me Dan I'm not sure? I'll assume you are.
I'm not talking about you or me stopping abruptly, I'm talking about someone behind not paying attention. I know someone who stopped at a set of lights and was hit hard from behind by someone who not only hadn't seen him but hadn't seen the lights. I've looked in my mirror a few times and thought, are you going to stop and I've prepared in case they weren't and that might mean easing off the braking a bit and rolling forward more, to being prepared to move out the way if possible.
I do the same thing on a bike. I check over my shoulder as I approach a light and brake, I don't want to be wiped out by some muppet who's decided he can make that left turn just in front of me.
I know someone else who got done for driving through a red light. He went back to the junction, timed the sequence and went to court to show it was timed wrongly.
We're moving away from ASL's though, which in my experience most people ignore around here. I suspect most of them don't even know what they are. In a similar vein to above, someone nearly went into the back of me because I stopped at the ASL instead of the lights. I could see them in the mirror, swearing at me.