TIFTON — Traffic lights are simple. Red means stop. Green means go. But that doesn’t mean much when a light stops working

Officer Amanda Faircloth with the Tifton Police Department said that she saw several vehicles speeding through intersections where the traffic light was out during the torrential rains last week.

“It was flooding rain, the lights were out and there were other cars approaching the intersection,” she said. She said that she had assumed that people knew how to drive in bad weather, but seeing so many drivers not following basic traffic rules made her reconsider.

When a traffic light is not working, the intersection is treated as a four way stop. All drivers approaching an intersection have to come to a complete stop, “not a slow roll,” said Faircloth, and the first vehicle to arrive at the intersection is the first one that may drive through after stopping.

The same rules apply when there is someone directing traffic.

Drivers have to stop whenever there is an officer directing traffic, and must obey the officer’s directions.

“You do not go until they look at you and they flag your vehicle to come through,” she said. “If they are not flagging for you, you stop.”

Faircloth said that one officer almost got run over by a vehicle that did not stop at an intersection with malfunctioning traffic lights recently.

In the event of heavy rains and other bad weather, it is recommended that drivers slow down and drive under the speed limit, particularly if they are driving at night in bad weather. “If it’s posted 55 miles per hour, that doesn’t mean you need to be doing 55 whenever it’s flooding rain,” she said.

“Whenever you’re driving in heavy rain, take into consideration that the road may have been washed out and no one had been able to block it off,” she said. “Watch out for trees down.”

Faircloth also said that there is a persistent problem with drivers not moving over to the side of the road when they hear emergency vehicles with sirens on coming up behind them.

“They don’t have to pull in a parking lot, but if they would just pull to the right and stop, that would give us enough room to come around them safely,” she said.

She said it happens every day, and either drivers don’t stop at all, or they stop in the middle of the road and the emergency vehicles can’t get around them.

Another persistent issue is people getting out of their cars when they’ve been pulled over by law enforcement.

She said that a lot of people want to jump out of the car and try to explain what they were doing. “You don’t do that. You sit in your vehicle and you wait for the officer to approach.”

She said that drivers also shouldn’t start reaching or grabbing things from inside their car after they are pulled over.

Faircloth explained that it is a safety issue for both the driver and the officer.

If a driver starts reaching for something in their car, or they get out and start walking up to the officer, the officer is probably going to assume the person is reaching for a weapon, or is going to be a threat in some way.

“Unfortunately with everything that has been going on, the first thing you assume is safety and the worst. We have to protect ourselves and we also have to protect everyone around us,” she said.

She said that communication is key in these situations.

“If everybody knew to just sit there and tell the officer what they are reaching for before they do it, it eases everybody,” Faircloth said.

Faircloth also said that parents should talk to their teenagers about how to behave during a traffic stop or other encounter with law enforcement.

Most teenagers experience their first police encounter without their parents, and have no idea how to react.

She also said that if people hear gunshots nearby, don’t go outside to try and see what is going on.

“Do the safe thing for you and your kids and stay in your home. If you’re outside and you hear it, go inside and call 911,” she said.