Should Police Officers be Directing Traffic at an Intersection with Broken Traffic Lights?

It was unfair for them to give you a ticket, but the law is that when the traffic light is out you treat it like a flashing red, you stop and look carefully, then proceed.

Yes, in a perfect world there would be a cop there directing traffic. But police departments today are all underfunded and short-handed, so they have to allocate scarce resources. Where I live the police department announced a couple of years ago that they will no longer respond to burglar alarms. This is how we want it in the US, because nobody wants to pay any taxes. If someone goes to the Post Office or the DMV and doesn't have to stand in line for half an hour, they feel the govt. is wasting our money.

You can't very well plead guilty if you didn't stop before proceeding through the intersection. (Ignorance of the law is no excuse). But, well first of all most insurance companies don't raise your rates for one ticket. Secondly, your state may allow you to go to traffic school to get that point off your license. And thirdly, since it's a first offense, and a very minor one, you might go to court and ask the judge to give you a break and lower the fine.

If the light wasn't red...its a default to slow way down and proceed with caution. Whoever is there first; or, is to the right, goes.

EDIT: The law varies from state to state on this. There is no "hard and fast" for the nation.

Yes, cops are Supposed to direct traffic.Just like at an accident,.they aren't supposed to just let traffic proceed normally. If it was too soon after they arrived, they maybe hadn't assigned a man to do it yet. And, they are understaffed and get busy.

To follow you and give you a bogus"ticket" when there was no red light is entrapment. Take pictures of the intersection and get a copy of the police report Verifying the light was out and Not red and no traffic direction.

EDIT: Just like when we got a ticket for "parking illegally" when there was no sign at that street. It was on a cul de sac we didn't park in. The ticket was $250, we took pictures, fought it, and Won. It was a known police trap that most only grumbled and paid, not fought.

Good Luck!

No, cops are not needed to direct traffic at intersections where the lights are out. All cars are required to treat the intersection like a 4 way stop.

Traffic lights out, you treat the intersection as a 4 way stop sign. Cop doesn't have to direct traffic. YOU have to obey the rules of the road.............

Do not listen to people that know not what they are talking about. When a signal light malfunctions for any reason it is now a 4 way stop.

if the light is out--it becomes a 4 way stop. it's in the drivers handbook and your responsibility to know that.

"I know it was my wrong"

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"what I thought was that the cop was directing me to go through"

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Absolute, irrefutable proof you are LYING.