Yes, this is exactly what that is. Basically both motorists assume that they have the ROW and it is safe to proceed. The oncoming motorist has a green ball and is going straight so assumes the turning motorist will not start out. The turning motorist sees the light turn red in their direction, assumes that oncoming traffic has to stop, and moreover assumes that if they do not start out, side street traffic will soon get released and they’ll get creamed.
This was a major reason the flashing yellow arrow was developed. For reasons beyond the scope of this discussion, sometimes for coordination purposes it’s desirable to have the through traffic lights turn red at different times. Under old signalling it wasn’t possible to communicate that through traffic had to stop but turning traffic did not need to immediately clear the intersection.
This situation is so dangerous that the the MUTCD requires existing installations to be removed or a sign “Oncoming traffic may have extended green” installed. Although it’s there’s probably a lot of illegal installations still around and pre-emption can still cause yellow traps in signals where it is not an issue under normal operation.
I don’t think it’s safe to even assume that, seems like I’m seeing more and more complexity and variability.
Some intersections I see with different timing of parallel directions (e.g. East/West) is because there is a right turn only signal on the perpendicular lanes (e.g. North/South). One direction, like East might turn red (due to current volume of cars in that direction) so the North lane right turn only signal can turn green and let a bunch of cars go, while West continue to be green.
This is true for cars that cannot clear the intersection due to traffic on the other side of the intersection, which causes gridlock. However, it is not true for left turns waiting for oncoming traffic to clear. In fact, I have been in intersections at busy traffic times when only one or maybe two cars can complete a left turn, and the only way they can do it is to pull into the intersection then wait for oncoming traffic to stop for red. Otherwise nobody would be able to turn left at all.