Originally Posted by
jon c.
I'm amazed at how many drivers are clueless to the sensors and will stop beyond the stop line, thus never triggering them. Or well before the stop line at some intersections.
I faced this often at one intersection I encountered daily while driving. At the bottom of a hill, many drivers would stop too soon and never trigger the light. Which would otherwise stay red forever. In a car, I'd ultimately have to go around them and just run the red light. Otherwise, I'd sit there forever.
If the cars stop
beyond the stop line, they will have driven over the sensor and tripped it. If they stop before the sensor, they won't trip it. A car is a large enough conductive object that they can often trip them by just putting the bumper over...or even near...the sensor line.
Originally Posted by
RichardGlover
Put your wheels down the center line of a 3-line loop. They're usually more sensitive there than on the edges, do reduce the chance of false positives from vehicles in adjacent lanes.
The figure 8 loops like you describe are more sensitive in the center because that are 2 wires laid down in the saw cut. This doubles the sensitivity near those wires. This is a fortuitous quirk of the system for those of us riding smaller conductive objects.
Originally Posted by
haplorrhine
The article on humantrasport said that the wheels are the most important part of the bike for detection by the sensors. That would explain why I got detected when I positioned my bike horizontally. I had one wheel over each sawcut. By keeping the front wheel turned forward, I was aligning it with the sawcut on the right side.
You'd do better on a figure 8 or a square to ride directly over and parallel to the wires for their entire length. And you wouldn't have to turn sideways.
Originally Posted by
jsdavis
Is there a good way to find the loops if there is no visible cut? I recently went on a trip and could not trip a single light in town because I could not find the marks I'm used to seeing. I end up having to press the pedestrian button at every light if there wasn't a car there.
Sorry but there is no real good way to detect them after they have been buried. Position over the loops for a small conductive object like a bike is very critical.