In general, urban signal-controlled intersections are just the traffic engineers screaming "I've tried nothing and am all out of ideas."
We use them pretty much by default in the US, but most urban areas should be vastly cutting back on them. All-way stops and, of course, roundabouts are both provably FAR safer often with no impact or a positive impact to overall congestion. Plus, pretty universally much cheaper to build and maintain.
Signal-controlled designs should be reserved for intersections where it is literally not possible to fit a more passive design while maintaining sight distances or for places where truly huge traffic volumes are involved (a significant interchange) where no other traffic flow redesign is possible.
Using traffic lights is ALL about increasing level of service. Which is just code for "The city values keeping more cars moving faster over both safety and financial responsibility."
All that to say, I bet a lot of the intersections that would be most annoying without right on red... don't really need to have lights controlling traffic flow in them at all.