Some attempt to time it so they can drift forward and have a little forward momentum as the light turns green.
This is common enough here that I’m pretty sure the line is intentionally put further back than it would otherwise need to be.
And I’ll admit I have trouble with spacial awareness every time I get into a new car. But I do my best to figure it out in my driveway before going anywhere. Though, as a relatively infrequent driver, I do probably err on the side of caution too much.
This tends to happen when I’m cycling. I’ll get to an intersection on a quiet street with not much traffic, sit myself in the inductance loop and hope my bike is enough to trigger the lights to change for me. Usually it isn’t and so I look around hoping a car comes along so I can get through the intersection (my other options are to run the light or use the pedestrian crossing). When I see a car approaching, I move well forwards off the loop so they can put their big hunk of metal on there and get the lights working. Unfortunately half the time they will sit back behind the loop and we both end up being stuck there. I have to gesture to them to move forwards.
I don’t live in New York, but I can tell you why I do this. Cars turning left into the road I am in frequently cut the corner and I have seen minor accidents when they cut it too close. Better safe than inconvenienced. More often trucks need the extra room, though you can see those before you arrive at the intersection. More than once trucks have gotten “stuck” half-way through the turn and unable to angle around the first car. And of course no one can move at that point so it takes a while to sort out. I do my best to avoid the drama.
They’re from a northern state (where snow and ice lasts for 6 to 7 months solid) and that’s the way they were taught. If someone rear ends you and you get pushed into the intersection, the fault then becomes yours if you hit someone else.
Ha! You think that’s bad? When I lived in the Netherlands I was perturbed to discover that the traffic lights were placed directly over the near side of the intersection. It was impossible to see them unless you were about the fourth car back. I never could figure out how the Dutch drivers knew when the light turned green. Closest I could guess was they just waited until cars coming from the opposite direction start moving. But.. um… how did those people know when to go???
Part of what I enjoyed about the NL was they seemed to have so many everyday things that made so much more sense than the counterparts in the USA.
This was not one of those things.
(NOTE: I write about this in the past tense but I imagine it’s still that way there today.)
But it’s also rude to refuse to share your umbrella.
OK, I can understand staying back if you are in the far left lane and you are worried about turning traffic.
However, this happens everywhere. People in the far right lane. People in the middle lane. People at stop lights where there is no turning traffic of this sort. These people aren’t trying to roll forward and use the momentum for the green. The only people I see trying that (poorly) are usually right on the line and always end up starting way too early and have to stop again before the green.
And for some reason, here in NY hardly anyone pushes over the line. That happens a lot in PA and DE and the NY behavior has corrected mine somewhat. My nose is always on the line now, instead of my front tires.
Also, I will disagree on the “6-7 months of snow” It’s like that for northwestern NY but not southeastern. It’s a big state. I’ll just give another bite of info and say that I’m seeing this behavior in Westchester county. And from judging from all the furiously spinning tires the two days a year ice sticks around here, these people have absolutely no clue how to drive in ice and snow. However, maybe all the people I’m seeing stopping far back are secretly from Buffalo and Rochester. No way for me to tell.
[Disclaimer: didn’t read the whole thread]
If I’m in the middle lane (the left or turning lane), I will stop rather far-ish back because people to my left (in a path perpendicular to mine) who are making right turns sometimes come perilously close to crashing into me as they swing around. Texas is the land of Big Pickup Trucks. If it’s a bus or a big delivery van or truck, they sometimes don’t have enough room to turn at all, even to the point that I’ve had to back up (if there’s no one behind me). I just leave room so that doesn’t happen.
ETA: Okay… I see this was addressed somewhat. Carry on…
There ottabe a law that everyone has to glue this to the inside of the windshield.
Pet peeve, though here in NC I don’t see it for the first car in line, but the others.
In some places, there’s plenty of available roadway so it’s no issue. But people do it downtown or in really short turn lanes, causing traffic jams behind them – of which they’re blithely unaware. A half car length is more than enough. Any more than that is just stupid.
My bigger pet peeve is that drivers here seem to be completely ignorant of how to handle it when the traffic lights are out. If they think they’re on the bigger road, they cruise right through. When there’s disagreement about that, the older/cheaper car gets the right-of-way.
I drive a 2000 minivan, so I get right-of-way often enough. 
This was my thought too, and also to leave room for an inattentive driver rear-ending you and pushing you toward the intersection.
Well, I took driver’s ed in HS, and also had a week’s training with an on-road driver’s training company when I was around 17, and they both stressed that for both the distance between vehicles and at lights (which were typically skating rinks in the winter due to idling vehicle exhaust melting the snow at the intersections).
Never been to Westchester, all I know is that in Anchorage, in the winter, people who are first in line at the light typically stop pretty far back from the light (not all of them of course, but a good percentage). Not so far back that they don’t trip the sensors, so probably not the two car lengths the OP was describing, but most drivers do leave a good bit of room.
The snow doesn’t last long enough (so far) here in Colorado, so I haven’t yet noticed what people’s intersection habits are. 
In general I don’t, but there’s a place here where I always leave a lot of space - so do other drivers. Lots of buses and trucks turn from Barcelona onto Primavera and the space marked by the road signs is a bit tight: much wiser for all involved to make sure anyboy driving a big vehicle will have enough room to make that turn comfortably.
We were taught to stop just behind the line, and the Michigan driver’s test requires it. It seems to me that they should put the lines in the right places, and we shouldn’t have to compensate.
Of course, on icy roads, you stop early, but you still want to end up at the line. If it happens to be on slick black ice, nobody gives you the evil eye if you don’t snug up. (You get credit for stopping at all, and extra credit if you can start back up!)
I used to take a route home from work in Ann Arbor MI where a residential downhill road ended at a tee in a low spot that tended to ice up, very slick. I remember hitting the brakes and practically nothing happening (long before ABS), sliding through the intersection and bumping to a stop on the curb, thankful there was no cross traffic. After that I took pains to monitor the conditions more carefully and slow down way ahead, or take an alternate route.
People never parked on the street at that spot in the winter. I wonder if it was a lesson learned the hard way!
I was sitting at a light yesterday when a bus made a right turn from the cross street to my left, if that makes sense. The bus driver was very skilled in making that tight turn but he still came very close to hitting me. So I thought to myself, “I should stop farther back next time”, which made me think of this thread.
Unless you folks are arguing that these people stop far back from the line EVERYWHERE as a result of being trained by being almost clipped in left turn lanes, I don’t think it holds any water.
Like I said, these people stop way behind the line EVERYWHERE. Even at lights where they are on on a one lane road and nobody can turn near them. Even in the far right lane, et cetera.
I followed a lady today in the far right lane. Every light she had to stop at (three), she stopped about 1.5 car lengths back from the line. Had nothing to do with being in a left turn lane faced by turning traffic.
I’m thinking now it either chalks up to inattention, or the being trained for ice and snow thing. Also a dash of people with spatial problems erring on the side of caution.
They may be smoking pot. In my pot smoking days I have been known to stop almost a block before a signal and then having to readjust.
Maybe they’re just really short, and using the “stop when the wheels touch your car” signal.