[matheusmoreira]

It depends. Traffic lights are just mutexes. They are there to stop traffic so that other traffic may pass safely. There's no point if there aren't any other cars. Obviously anyone running a light on a busy intersection deserves to get fined but if you know the terrain, have good visibility into the road where the other traffic comes from and can clearly see there are no vehicles present, running the red light is utterly harmless.

In my city, certain traffic lights literally turn off at night. There's not enough traffic flowing to justify them.

[SteveNuts]

I can’t tell if you’re joking or seriously trying to justify running red lights.

[matheusmoreira]

Use your eyes, your situational awareness and your best judgement. The traffic light is not god's word.

In my neighborhood there used to be a traffic light that would be red for a long time despite not usefully regulating any traffic whatsoever. It stopped traffic despite the fact no other traffic could possibly conflict with it. People realized this and routinely ran that light with zero consequences. At some point the city realized it too and redesigned the traffic controls so that the light would be green in this situation.

[Larrikin]

Stop training yourself to run red lights before you kill some body.

The correct action is to constantly bug your local representative to fix the problem, not break a law written in blood.

[AyyEye]

I understand the desire to act holier than thou and pretend that going through a red light with no traffic is murder in the making, but the situation they advocate for (running when clear) is even written into law in some states (at least for motorcycles/bicycles). Some vehicles don't trigger the sensors and the lights never change, so you are allowed to go after a full stop. I would not be surprised in the least if there were some states where the wording of the law applied to cars as well.

[matheusmoreira]

The correct action is to understand why certain barriers were erected in your way before attempting to demolish them. If you don't understand, just respect the barrier. If you understand, you know if, when and under which conditions it can be safely bypassed. Use your judgement.

Jaywalking laws were also written in blood. People break them every single day regardless because they have eyes and can look both ways to determine if it is safe to cross the street before actually doing it.

[kmoser]

And yet, jaywalking pedestrians get killed daily, despite their best attempts at determining whether it's safe to cross. The problem with allowing drivers to use their best judgment as to whether it's safe to continue through a red light (after stopping) is that a non-zero percent of those drivers will fail to judge the situation correctly, especially during an edge case they rarely encounter.

[matheusmoreira]

It's impossible to get hit by cars if there are no cars around you. Vehicles are not going to materialize out of nowhere and crash into you. They are going to be funneled into your path by the roads. If you look at the road and see zero traffic, then you cannot be hit by traffic. Even if you run a red light.

Obviously, if you can't see the road where the cars will come from, then you cannot know if there are any cars coming towards you in a potentially intersecting trajectory.