Have you ever seen a traffic light that works like this?

There is a traffic light near my home that goes through the following sequence when turning from red to green:
1. Green light and green left arrow go on
2. Green left arrow turns yellow and red light goes on
3. Left arrow turns off and red light stays on
4. Light turns green

Each of the steps lasts for a relatively short time, though the first step lasts a little longer than the others.

When I want to turn left, the effect of steps 2 and 3 is for me to stop so that when the light turns green I have to contend with traffic from the opposite direction. I wonder if this was set up to prevent a string of cars turning left from interfering with the cars going in the opposite direction.