All road users are being urged to allow vehicles bearing flashing green lights to pass them – where it is safe and legal to do so.

Those flashing green lights mean a first responder is en route to an incident – it could be a member of the voluntary Channel Islands Air Search, Lifeboat, Flying Christine, or Civil Protection crews, another volunteer supporting the emergency services, or staff from the Coastguard, ambulance, or fire services, or a doctor.

While they must adhere to all road rules, their flashing green lights are used to alert other road users that they are rushing to an incident and to ask other people to be courteous and allow them to pass.

Those drivers with flashing green lights can only pass where it is “safe and legal to do so” and they must obey all road rules, but saving seconds en route to an incident can mean the difference between life and death.

A member of Guernsey’s voluntary lifeboat crew asked Express to share this reminder after a teenage boy was saved from the water on the west coast on Monday evening.

Tobias Batiste has told Express how grateful he is to the emergency services and the members of the public who contributed to his rescue, after he went swimming at the north end of Cobo.

Sarah Froome took the image above at Grandes Rocques, after Tobias had been brought ashore by the St Peter Port lifeboat crew using the Inshore Lifeboat, the Harold Hobbs.

One of the St Peter Port lifeboat volunteer crew told Express that it can be a “nightmare getting to the lifeboat station when people don’t move out of the way, and therefore slow our response significantly sometimes to incidents exactly like this one”.

A similar message was recently shared by the Channel Islands Air Search, which is also crewed entirely by volunteers.

In detailing their response to an incident on Good Friday, the CIAS said: “As ever, we ask motorists to be considerate and give way to crew members responding with flashing green lights on their vehicles, when safe to do so.”