During the third episode of the HBO show "True Detective" the following dialogue is exchanged:
Cop 1: "Certain linguist anthropologists think that religion is a language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain; dulls critical thinking."
Cop 2: "Well, I don't use ten dollar words as much as you, but for a guy who sees no point in existence you sure fret about it an awful lot. And you still sound panicked."
Cop 1: "At least I'm not racing to a red light."
I had not heard this phrase before, and am curious of its origin and meaning?
EDIT: Before transcribing the dialogue, I had written the phrase as "racing to a stoplight."
You can find the full dialogue here
Best Answer
I don't know why OP should think there might be an astronomical reference involved. I've never come across the "expression" before, and I rather doubt it will ever become common, but fairly obviously the figurative reference is to...
It's a trivial metaphor, so I don't think it "means" anything to find a "first use", but here it is in 2002 from a representative of European shipbuilders, noting the lack of future contracts...
(That's a rather cunning way of transcribing the man's words, in that you can either interpret those "scare quotes" as alerting you to a creative non-standard usage, or simply as reported speech.)
See fourth comment below for a 1998 instance (also "industry-related"). There's no real significance to the stop light / stoplight / red light variations - just that AmE uses the first two more often than BrE does, as with toward / towards. The same imagery may occur with hurtling / speeding etc.
A more common "arresting" metaphor (in the stoppage or sudden cessation of motion sense) is...
...alluding to the moment of impact and/or the reckless/futile movement towards the wall.