Two-Wheels
Well-Known Member
Never really thought about this until yesterday so I'm going to go ahead & ask what is going to sound like a dumb question.
A month or so ago I was out in an area I don't usually cycle in & I came up on some temp lights on a quiet road. I'm waiting ... waiting ... waiting & nothing is happening. Nothing is coming my way & nobody is behind me. Just when I thought ok we're taking the piddle a bit here, I'm going to go ... a car came behind me & the lights changed to green. Bit weird I thought. Never had anything like it before or since, until yesterday.
I was out fairly early - 6am, just getting a short ride in before work. I come to a set of lights which joins on to an A road. Traffic on the A road is flowing, they turn to red & then the lights to turn up my way go to green and then red. It should now be my turn to go ... except it doesn't happen. The main A road turns to green and stays green for a loooooooooooooooooong time.
Now I drive this road daily & where I'm now sat waiting on my bike - I've come out of this junction in a car plenty times before and what happened to me on the bike yesterday 1) never happens and 2) nobody is sat waiting THAT long for the lights to turn.
So after this long time I wait some more ... and more ... and then give up, see that traffic is not coming from the right and way way off in the distance to the left so I say sod it & go anyway even though my lights are still red.
Which brings the question - do lights need cars (or basically things bigger than a person on a bike) to trigger them?
I don't know whether some/all are pressure sensored in the road or what. I had a look at the tops of the traffic lights to see if there were any sensors on the top & there weren't. It was just unusual, in that it never happens like it did yesterday & I'd bet every penny I have that if I was in a car then immediately after the traffic turned right to come up my way then the next green light would've been for me to go and not the A road again.
* I don't really find myself in these situations as 1) I tend to stick to back roads on the bike and 2) while I head out early, by the time I'm on A-roads there's usually cars on there anyway. Yesterday coupled with the temporary lights the other month just made me wonder.
A month or so ago I was out in an area I don't usually cycle in & I came up on some temp lights on a quiet road. I'm waiting ... waiting ... waiting & nothing is happening. Nothing is coming my way & nobody is behind me. Just when I thought ok we're taking the piddle a bit here, I'm going to go ... a car came behind me & the lights changed to green. Bit weird I thought. Never had anything like it before or since, until yesterday.
I was out fairly early - 6am, just getting a short ride in before work. I come to a set of lights which joins on to an A road. Traffic on the A road is flowing, they turn to red & then the lights to turn up my way go to green and then red. It should now be my turn to go ... except it doesn't happen. The main A road turns to green and stays green for a loooooooooooooooooong time.
Now I drive this road daily & where I'm now sat waiting on my bike - I've come out of this junction in a car plenty times before and what happened to me on the bike yesterday 1) never happens and 2) nobody is sat waiting THAT long for the lights to turn.
So after this long time I wait some more ... and more ... and then give up, see that traffic is not coming from the right and way way off in the distance to the left so I say sod it & go anyway even though my lights are still red.
Which brings the question - do lights need cars (or basically things bigger than a person on a bike) to trigger them?
I don't know whether some/all are pressure sensored in the road or what. I had a look at the tops of the traffic lights to see if there were any sensors on the top & there weren't. It was just unusual, in that it never happens like it did yesterday & I'd bet every penny I have that if I was in a car then immediately after the traffic turned right to come up my way then the next green light would've been for me to go and not the A road again.
* I don't really find myself in these situations as 1) I tend to stick to back roads on the bike and 2) while I head out early, by the time I'm on A-roads there's usually cars on there anyway. Yesterday coupled with the temporary lights the other month just made me wonder.