To think people would use common sense when the traffic lights are CLEARLY not working

[pinoli]

RED for five minutes, orangegreen, RED for 5 minutes, orangegreen. This is on a dual carriageway with the lights letting people in from a tiny side road (roughly one car every ten minutes!)

Traffic backed up for miles and (no exaggeration) one car getting through on the tiny 2 second orangegreen light.

I sat in the traffic for 35 minutes until the police came and started waving people through. Honestly about 3 cars went through the red on their own after realising the lights were clearly broken. But everyone else just sat there waiting for the 2 second green.

That sounds really frustrating OP - you must have had high blood pressure by the time you got to work!

I wouldn't have gone. Sorry. But unless the lights are off, I'll obey them.

Seriouslyffs, even if they are clearly stuck on red and the merging lane is stuck on green? And you can see a good 100 meters down the merging lane to see if it was clear?

Its bloody madness!

It is an offence to drive through a red light so I wouldn't have wanted to risk the fine!

If I could see very clearly for a long way, probably yes.
Wouldn't be happy though and as Chessie said id worry about being caught and fined. For the same reason I wouldn't have called the non emergency number and reported it.