[aminuit]

There is a good point in the comments that isn't made in the article. Unlike a traffic light outage due to power failure, the ice buildup may only affect one of the signals, so the conventional rule to treat a dark traffic signal as a four way stop fails. One person may see a green light, while another driver on a perpendicular course stops at the affected light, but then enters the intersection because he expects the other driver to stop.

[maukdaddy]

You should never enter an intersection "expecting" another driver to stop under those kind of circumstances. After watching the driving abilities of the average American, I would actually wait at the intersection until no cars are in sight to continue on.

[mechanical_fish]

Congratulations, you are officially qualified to drive in Massachusetts. ;)

[flatline]

I had exactly this scenario happen years ago. I was driving to a four-way stoplight and the light was snowed over (only in my direction, as it turns out). The cars on the side road were stopped. I slowed to a near-stop and was trying to figure out what to do - some people coming from the opposite direction were going. Sure enough, the side traffic started entering the intersection and I tried to come to a complete stop and (in slow-motion) slid on ice into a car at about 5 MPH, who did not even bother to look to the sides, presumably because his light was perfectly clear.