Alphie

How many traffic lights do you have on your commute?
How many of those are "problem lights" which will not change for a bike?

On my 7 mile trip I have 9 lights, 2 of which give me trouble. I usually wind up running those 2 after waiting for a couple minutes for the change.

Chris L

I only have about half a dozen (or less) I think. It's mostly roundabouts on my route. Just as well, because Queensland has the slowest traffic lights in the entire country.

Check your local road regs. You'll probably find that a non-responsive traffic light can be treated as faulty, and hence you're allowed to proceed through it after ascertaining that it doesn't work.

operator

I ride on main roads, don't have a problem with lights not changing. However the two sets of lights down Hoggs Hollow always annoy me as they turn red always, I mean always when you're bombing down it at like 65kph.

Diggy18

On one route I ride, there are two lights that won't change for a bike. Usually I can wait a minute and a car will come along and cause the light to change. Otherwise I go through it, if I can.

Problem is, at one of these lights the intersecting traffic is usually too heavy to cross without a green. That one is a pain and I have had to wait two or three minutes for a car to come along and change the light.

SaskCyclist

There are six lights on my 10K route. Three sense a vehicle a change accordingly. I was having problems with one of them. I called the city and talked to traffic personnel and they informed me where I needed to be when I stop so that I trigger the light. Since then I have never had a problem with lights.

greenbreezer

I have about 15 lights on my 20-mile commute, most of which work in my favor since I'm in the more heavily travelled route. If I'm stuck at a light with no car in sight, I tend to roll onto the sidewalk and press the pedestrian crossing button to trigger the light. Then I roll back onto the street.

A traffic reporter for our local paper once addressed the issue of signals not sensing motorcycles and he said that it's okay for motorcycles to go through a red light *ONLY IF* the biker waited through 2 cycles of the signal lights and it is safe to ride through the red light. I've never tried that on my motorcycle as a car usually comes along to trigger the sensor by the second cycle. But I'm not so sure if I would be bold enough to do that (I would on my bicycle though.... as long as it was safe enough...I know, I know, double standard....).

AndrewP

Why dont you slow down or stop when you are up the hill, as its a straight run to those lights? I dont think any of the lights in Montreal have traffic sensors. I always roll through if the way is clear. I had to wait at 2 lights, and slow down for 3, on my 17 mile ride this morning.

Mueslix

About 11 on a 4 mile ride. Maybe I need to make some route changes.

jnbacon

I have twenty lights on my street route, five on my canal route, both about 14 miles. (15 more
reasons to get off my road bike and onto something that can be ridden in the dirt -- two more
days until I get my new ride! )

Several of the street route lights are bike unfriendly, but the only time there isn't car traffic with
me is after a night class, and if a car doesn't show up to change the light, I just run the red.

IronHorse

41 lights in a 13 mile commute.

If only the trafic was quiet enough for me to know if any of them would ignore a bike on its own :-)

PaulBravey

I have 12 sets of lights and 19 stop signs on my 11 mile commute but I don't have any problems with any of them. That said they seem to be slowly introducing lights with vehicle sensors in the area and they can cause me problems on weekend rides.

jerrryhazard

17 lights on a 6.75 journey to work. I think all are set off by cars except for one. Most of the time I make all the lights, and at times I will run them if traffic is thin/non existant.

There is one (new) light at the corner of the streets Trabue and McKinley that serves an odd intersection of roads. At one point all lights are red in each direction. I will run this light regularly as all traffic in all directions is stopped.

Grasschopper

Hmm 3.64 mile ride with 2 lights neither of which has ever been an issue.

webist

That should work well until someone on the cross street adopts the same strategy.

dskunk

I 've been waiting for this question. I counted 63 sets of lights on my summer route home ( 27 km ). No trouble with any of them 'cause they are all on major roads. Well, except for the same problem that operator has with lights at the bottom of a hill (mine was on Bathurst just north of Sheppard, same little valley only a bit further west, I don't ride that route much through the winter). Oh, and two stop signs.

jerrryhazard

I doubt this will go on much longer, as morning traffic is really backing up quite far. The intersection sits aside a new 'high end' subdivision of urban condos. I doubt the new tennants will stand for this inconvenience much longer... Aside from that, I run the light as careful as can be, it is a large enough area that a car would have to get a decent head start to be able to take me out

andygates

I have, um... about 15 sets of lights. I bribe the traffic-light goblins with sweeties each year to keep them sweet and green for me.

mtessmer

I have quite a few depending on which route I take. Most of them are not a problem, I can trigger them or other traffic will help on the others. The one that bothers me the most is one crossing a major four lane road, it's a very long red light and if it wasn't for traffic I'd never get accross. I avoid it in the winter because I cool down to far and it's hard for me to recover.

Alphie

Oi!

LittleBigMan

The lights on my commute are triggered by cars.

But I doubt they'd go off just for me. If they didn't, I'd look both ways and go for it. It's a pain the ass when the don't change for you.

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