Who has right-of-way at a traffic light outage?

We've all been there at some point or another.

There's been a power outage in your neighborhood and the traffic lights in the area are all out. You approach one of those intersections with other drivers. What do you do? Who has the right of way?

Most people believe the intersection becomes a "four-way stop." Michigan State Police is here to remind you: That's wrong.

"The intersection reverts back to the basic right-of-way requirements, not a four-way stop," MSP Metro Detroit tweeted Tuesday, ahead of Wednesday's wind storms.

In other words, treat each intersection with a down traffic lights as a "four-way yield" rather than a four-way stop, which would require every vehicle to stop at the intersection even when they don't need to, causing massive traffic back-ups at larger intersections.

If two vehicles enter an intersection on different roads at roughly the same time, the driver of the vehicle on the left should yield to the other vehicle.

Read more on the right-of-way requirements.

Contact Brian Manzullo: bmanzullo@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @BrianManzullo.

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