Are your traffic lights insensitive?
Posted By Sam Ollinger on January 4, 2010
Photo by flickr/squirmelia
I recently decided to start tracking all the insensitive traffic lights in the city of San Diego. That is, I will be tracking the traffic lights that aren’t triggered by bicycles.
I submitted a request on December 31, 2009 to the San Diego Streets Division to have the left turn light at Hotel Circle South turning to Bachman Pl made more sensitive to bicycles.
Today, January 4, 2010, I received notification via email the left turning light has been made sensitive.
I won’t get a chance to test the signal out until the end of the week, but if you are a rider who regularly uses that intersection, please check and report back on whether the light is indeed sensitive to cyclists.
If you are dealing with insenstive traffic lights, be sure to submit a request to the City and send us an update as well.
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5 Responses to “Are your traffic lights insensitive?”
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It also helps to make sure you know how to trip the signal. Most of them are loop detectors in the pavement. If you see a circle, stop on the edge of the circle, not in the middle. If it has diagonal cuts through the middle, stop on the middle of the loop. If you can’t see the loop in the pavement at all, and the light won’t trip, call the city. If you stop in the right spot and the signal won’t trip, call the city. If you call the city and they still don’t fix it, call the Coalition.
I made that left turn yesterday and was surprised that the light detected me.
Great idea, Bike SD!
It can be frustrating when a signal doesn’t recognize you on two-wheels. Sometimes it makes me feel like a lesser class of citizen. Motorists are recognized but often cyclists are not.
I’m glad you’re taking the pro-active lead on this! I love how Bike SD is determined to improve bicycling conditions in SD, not just report on them.
Next, can you create a special section on San Diego restaurants that refuse to recognize cyclists as legitimate drive-thru patrons? : ) ‘You must have a car,’ I was recently told at a late nite drive-thru…
I think many of the signals in my area use the simple single-loop detector. Stopping in the middle of the circle is often not enough to trigger the signal. My understanding is that the rims offer the most metal, closest to the loop detector. I get best results by making sure my wheel is on top of the wire, with as much rim parallel to the wire as possible. More info: http://www.humantransport.org/bicycledriving/library/signals/green.htm
I wanted to post a link to this page when I commented the other day, but I couldn’t find the link (and settled for a different page). I think this page provides a really good visual description of where to position a bike on various types of signal detector loops – see slides 4 & 5:
http://www.cyclistview.com/signaldetection/index.htm