for what its worth, in TX you can pull past the stop line, in a turn lane with no protected left (green arrow) and wait for the traffic to clear to make your left turn. It is a legal way to run a red light, more or less. the delay between your yellow changing to red and the cross traffic's red turning green is 2 or 3 seconds, plenty of time for you to either a) finish your turn and be out of the way, or b) at least show your intent to turn to the cross traffic, who must yield to you, as this is considered a legal turn. this was taught to me in driver's ed years ago, and from what I see around here in Dallas it still applies. You are however running the risk that some idiot will run the red and t-bone you, but you run that risk on a protected left too. some places around town here it really is the only way youll get left unless you wait up to and including 4 cycles for the next protected left. I have never seen anyone even come remotely close to getting hit doing this. maybe the delay isnt as long other places due to the law being different, but here i would say it is a fairly safe maneuver.

my .02
michael