Bike doesn't trigger traffic lights!

[summerdays]

I've a couple of different sets that don't recognise me (two sets on Kellaway Avenue)... mostly I'm ok as I'm going through with cars and they are fairly busy routes ... but every now and again you realise there isn't a car and you've just sat through an entire sequence of the lights. One set is on a bus lane in town ... and I just go through on red when there aren't any pedestrians crossing.

 

[Globalti]

Had an instance a few months ago in the car where the driver at the head of the queue had stopped short of the junction and her car didn't trigger the lights. A steadily growing line of cars sat through three changes of the lights until I realised what had happened; luckily it's a wide junction and the first driver was so far back that I was able to squeeze alongside her and set the thing off. I expect she thought I was trying to get through on red.

 

[Globalti]

The loops work like metal detectors, so non-ferrous bikes are OK, and carbon bikes with alloy wheels should also be OK. You'll get detected best if your bike is positioned along the long edge of the loop rather than across the middle.
If the lights are a problem, I'd suggest complaining to the council about them. They can adjust the sensitivity up enough to detect any bike, but if they turn it up too far they start detecting traffic on the other side of the road. There are some lights near me that keep switching from detecting to not detecting.

The detectors on some lights are microwave doppler, and detect the movement of approaching traffic, so if you roll up to the light too slowly you may get registered as a pedestrian. The lights have small square boxes on top. There may also be old unused loops in the road.

Useful info thanks. Looks like you work for Highways?

Modern LED traffic management systems are fantastic - we've just had a new scheme installed at a major roundabout near me (Whitebirk junction on the Blackburn ring road) where they increased the capacity of the actual roundabout massively and installed a very well-controlled LED setup, now traffic queueing to join the roundabout never waits for more than a few seconds and invariably you're through the junction in less than a minute. It used to be a nightmare with huge queues in all directions.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

I've reported two of these to my council and they were both fixed really quickly. They just change the sensitivity.

If you can find a suitable person in your own council to report this to it might be fixed easily. Posty - have PM'd you the details of the person I've spoken to in Manchester council.

 

[summerdays]

One set is on a bus lane in town ... and I just go through on red when there aren't any pedestrians crossing.

I typed that ... then a bit later went to view one of the regular blogs I read each day and what should be the item for today but:

http://bristolcars.blogspot.com/2010/04/broad-quay-signalling.html

Those lights are really weird - they are purely used by buses and cyclists, and pedestrians to cross the road. For some reason they turn green going towards the harbour before they turn green going the other way... its wide enough for two way traffic so it doesn't seem to make sense at all.

 

[Armegatron]

Buy a small Neodymium magnet and glue it onto the bottom of your shoes.

(I havent tried this but apparently it works!)

 

[Dilbert]

I had one on my morning run loop which I used to have to walk round but I have got it to trigger now pretty consistently by slowing down and zigzagging over it, thats on an alloy frame.