red light offence

[petewood]

I experienced one of those traffic-controlled lights on my Aprilia, sat there for a good five minutes wondering why it wasn't changing

Someone once told me that the mass of a motorbike isn't enough for some of these lights to register that there is a vehicle present, and having come across this situation numerous times at night I'm sure that it is true. Sometimes it works if you back up a bit and then slowly move forwards, and the lights will change straight away. If they don't, you have to wait for another car to approach from behind you or in front of you if it's a crossroads; or you can sneak through as you say. It happens less often when you ride a bigger bike. Try carrying panniers full of horseshoes. If your Aprilia is a 125 I would settle for one pannier!

 

[AdamW]

Combined weight of me and vehicle (whether it is a light motorcycle or a scooter is some mystery!) was 220kg, a bit too heavy to be a person (at least a person who would be walking across the road!).

Good point about weight sensors though, a 50cc moped with a skinny teen on it probably weighs 18-20 stone, and there are plenty of people who weigh that. So setting up the sensors to respond to a 50cc moped might make lights turn to green when the larger fella crosses the road.

I have also heard of metal sensing ones: seeing as there is very little metal in a bike compared to a car, perhaps that isn't enough to awaken the light-change system either?

 

[pipme]

If it causes that much grief get off and wheel the thing through !! On the pavement if necessary !! Alternative route be bu##ered .. People have busy lives today .....

 

[petewood]

I have also heard of metal sensing ones: seeing as there is very little metal in a bike compared to a car, perhaps that isn't enough to awaken the light-change system either?

I think this is the way it works, but whether it picks up on the magnetic field or whatever I would like to know. I think that apart from the physical size of the bike compared to a car there is also the fact that you have an alloy engine block on the bike, although I have found that 4- cylinder bikes are more apparent to the sensors than one-pot strokers.

 

[andy]

another example of bad lights: there is a T junction with lights. no problem there. but there is a ped cross IMMEDIATLY at the top right of the T. they look like they are the lights further back form the lights next to the stop line, so people often go thru them mistaking them for something else.

 

[Thermo]

It always makes me laugh at how smoothly traffic flows when a set of lights are broken. Great planning

 

[nstreet]

It always makes me laugh at how smoothly traffic flows when a set of lights are broken. Great planning

Crossroads are effectively turned into roundabouts (give way to the right) so why dont we have more roundabouts and less traffic lights in these instances

Sorry, forgot there for a minute that traffic lights are meant to cause congestion in order to force us all onto expensive, unreliable public transport

 

[kendor]

will traffic lights need to change their colours as colour codeing of wiring has had to change in order to satisfy EU regs?

 

[pipme]

It always makes me laugh at how smoothly traffic flows when a set of lights are broken. Great planning

Crossroads are effectively turned into roundabouts (give way to the right) so why dont we have more roundabouts and less traffic lights in these instances

Sorry, forgot there for a minute that traffic lights are meant to cause congestion in order to force us all onto expensive, unreliable public transport

That is the excuse used by slapshod, useless councils .. HMG should NEVER have remarked about cutting personal transport usage ... Look what happened when the Cop's were able to get away with "We have too much paperwork .. we want to be on the street, but cannot get there.." .. Same with NHS.
Somehow they all imagine that we now accept cr ap so cr ap is what we'll be happy to get, whilst their pay is well above, even average .. for what ?

 

[AdamW]

Problem with crossroads without lights is that you only need one impatient prat to ruin it for everyone by causing an accident that blocks the whole thing off.

Round here we have some roundabouts where people practice the method of "speed up to the roundabout as quick as you can and no-one will dare pull out". Often you see them braking AFTER entering the roundabout.

Now, the Highway Code instructs you to give way to vehicles already on the roundabout, so provided they haven't reached the roundabout yet it is YOUR right of way. However, people will generally wait until it is safe rather than just exercising their right of way. So, where you have a minor road crossing a major road a roundabout isn't always as effective as traffic lights. From the point of view of the minor road anyway. I'm sure we have all sat at a roundabout whilst traffic just sped across from the right, nose to tail.