Red lights - Another thread ........

[Ozboc]

Didn't want to hijack the other thread , so made a new one here.

Ok , now this has happened to me a few times now- sit at lights , making sure i have hit the pressure pads on the road- even break hard onto them to hopefully produce more weight to activate them. But sometimes they don't activate and i end up sitting there for about 3 light change phases before i leave ( on a red light )

Now what's the go if i happen to get pulled up By an unmarked Popo? they will book me for Disobey traffic signal -- am i meant to sit there for all eternity ????

I have a set of lights at the end of my street that will not activate from my weight - i end up going around the long way just to go to the shops

what recourse do we have ? what do you do ???

Boc

P.s I weigh in at 96Kg so combined with bike - we are not exactly light ...

[Maj]

I read once that a rare earth magnet mounted in the lower fairing will trigger these . not sure how much metal you would pickup or nearly pickup, standing a nail on its end in time for the rear wheel could be a problem!!!

[Louwai]

Taken from the "HOW STUFF WORKS" web site.
.................
There are all sorts of technologies for detecting cars -- everything from lasers to rubber hoses filled with air! By far the most common technique is the inductive loop. An inductive loop is simply a coil of wire embedded in the road's surface. To install the loop, they lay the asphalt and then come back and cut a groove in the asphalt with a saw. The wire is placed in the groove and sealed with a rubbery compound. You can often see these big rectangular loops cut in the pavement because the compound is obvious.
Inductive loops work by detecting a change of inductance.
Let's say you take a coil of wire perhaps 5 feet in diameter, containing five or six loops of wire. You cut some grooves in a road and place the coil in the grooves. You attach an inductance meter to the coil and see what the inductance of the coil is. Now you park a car over the coil and check the inductance again. The inductance will be much larger because of the large steel object positioned in the loop's magnetic field. The car parked over the coil is acting like the core of the inductor, and its presence changes the inductance of the coil.
A traffic light sensor uses the loop in that same way. It constantly tests the inductance of the loop in the road, and when the inductance rises, it knows there is a car waiting!

Putting iron in the core of an inductor gives it much more inductance than air or any other non-magnetic core would. There are devices that can measure the inductance of a coil, and the standard unit of measure is the henry.
...........................

Looks to me like it's the volume of "metal" which is contained in the item (vehicle) parked on the road.
The bikes have very low quantities of steel. Most of the bike is aluminium which has very low or no magnetic properties.

A magnet on the underside might work, but some research would be required to figure how big the magnet needs to be to actually make a difference.
Might end up being a weight issue for some, not to mention a mounting / positional issue.

[Madmax]

Now what's the go if i happen to get pulled up By an unmarked Popo? they will book me for Disobey traffic signal -- am i meant to sit there for all eternity ????

what recourse do we have ? what do you do ???

I suggest that you contact your local Road Traffic Authority and advise them, in a letter is better so you can prove you have made approaches to have the problem fixed, Register the letter, even better, hard for them to duck out from underneath by saying they did not get any such correspondence from you. Ask them for a timeframe until repairs have been made.
If I come across such an obstacle, and it does happen - Sit and watch the traffic for a reasonable time. If there were a copper sitting watching you, he would be convinced that you have waited long enough and not just scooted through. When there is no threat to your's or anyone elses safety make your way through the signals. It is your responsibility to be safe, everyone else thinks you have a red light. If you make it a safe turn/ move through the intersection it would take un unreasonable copper to book you in view of the problem with the signals, and we all know there's no such thing as an unreasonable copper aye!

Just a suggestion mate. Don't forget to write to the RTA, that way the problem may end up being fixed.


Max

[debandee]

As a sparky that plays with such devices, I agree with Louwai. All I can add is that the devices are incredibly sensitive. The only "vehicle" (please note the dripping sarcasm) that I haven't been able to pick up is a bicycle. But then those buggers don't obey road rules anyway.
A properly working sensor will pick up your motorbike and the computer will do the rest (that's the box on the corner usually electrical grey - although around Cairns they've been painted really pretty pictures).
Now what I DON'T know about is the attitude of the local boys-in-blue. I believe that if you're respectful & keep your cool and explain yourself to the policeman in question, you'll still be given a ticket and told to go to court. But that's only been my experience - what do I know?

[Ozboc]

Thanks guys for your replies :) will take them onboard


Boc

[1hotbusa]

If PC Plod gave you a ticket, I would take the matter to court. It is not your fault that the RTA traffic lights did not detect your bike. Anyway RTA policy is to short phase them, usually favouring the side road and blocking the major highway. Then when everybody gets the shits and starts jumping the red, the RTA act in the best interest of safety and..............

Install a red light camera.

As an aside, I knew a bloke who programmed traffic lights, and he was told to rig them to cause some degree of traffic congestion by the RTA. If they did not do this then traffic congestion would ease, then the RTA budget to fix traffic congestion would be cut. So to keep them in the money, we suffer.

[Volvi]

I believe theres a gizmo out there one can buy specifically for this purpose for bikes. cheap if I recall.

[debandee]

Rigging traffic congestion would mean the bean counters controlling the system actually knew enough of the traffic problems to know how to fix them... and then program the computers in such a way as to nearly fix them thereby causing enough traffic mayhem to justify their existence in our tax paying pockets. I don't think so - sound too much like a conspiracy theory to me. The sheer number of variables makes that size program impossible. The processor that sits in the heart of the traffic lights PLC is a little better than a 286. We've all got pentium processors; a 286 is more than just a few generations behind, so the program isn't being run by a very sophisticated piece of hardware. And is definitely not programmed by anyone worthy of praise. I think we've all had to wait too long for a red light and cursed the bastard for it

[BUSGO]

Let's not underestimate the power of a 286.
They weren't even around when their predecessors handled the moon landings.
(with something like 64kb of RAM to work with as well)