Is It Alright To Go Through A Red Light If No One Is Around?

How long is too long to wait at a red light?   Especially if it's 4:30 in the morning, quiet road, and there is very little traffic.  

One minute, two minutes, how about three or four minutes?  Why do I ask?  Alden Road, Fairhaven Mass at the intersection of Route 6.  There's a Dunkin Donuts on one side, a 7-Eleven on the other.   More often than not, if you're approaching the light from Alden Road, it will be red.   If there are no other cars behind you once you stop, it will not change.

Occasionally I have looked both ways onto Route 6, seen no traffic, and made the left through the light.   When a local police officer heard me talking about it on the show, she informed that I would be ticketed if she were to actually see me take that liberty.   This morning, light is red, police cruiser is parked in the Dunkin parking lot, headlights on.   I let the first minute go by without one single car passing through the light in the other direction.   Two minutes go by.  Do I take the liberty and go, testing the officer's sense of humor?

I could turn right on red and do a u-turn on route 6, but that's no fun.  At the three minute mark, I put the car in reverse, backup about 20 feet, and drive to the light again.  Nothing happens, not even movement from the cruiser.   At just under the 4 minute mark, a van pulls from the 7-eleven parking lot at triggers the light.

One car, it stays red, two cars, it will go green.    Plan for tomorrow.   I'll sleep the extra 4 minutes.  If the light is red, cruiser or no cruiser, it gets one minute.  60 seconds.   If there is no other traffic, it's left on red.   I'll then make this case to the judge.