Have you ever been standing at a traffic light and noticed a series of dinner plate-sized circles or squares on the street in front of the light? They’re called “inductive loop detectors,” and they sense the presence of a large amount of metal. They’re used on some traffic lights so that when a car pulls up to the light, the sensor can tell it’s there, and the light changes.
What if you’re on your bike? Bikes don’t have enough metal in them for many older inductive loop detectors to, er, detect them, so unless a car pulls up, cyclists are stuck waiting. “Techiquexpert” Tom Howell and I decided to try something out. Apparently, if you attach a magnet to the bottom of your bike, you can increase the ability of the detector to sense your presence. We decided to check it out in the video below. The results? Um, let’s just say we’re not becoming investigative reporters any time soon.
BTW, as you’ll hear on the show, traffic experts in some cities have responded to this challenge by increasing the sensitivity of the sensors, so they now register the presence of bikes and scooters.
Thanks for the item about magnets changing traffic lights. As a cyclist, I always knew that the lights were prejudiced in favour of cars, & figured it had something to do with the size of vehicles, but didn’t know how it worked.
Two added wrinkles, at least in Toronto (is this due to magnets too?), that I’ve noticed. Streetcars are somehow given priority, so that if you’re waiting to cross a busy street like Spadina, and there are streetcars coming/going in either direction, you’ll likely wait a lot longer. Also it seems at rush hour that it takes longer for the light to change if you’re waiting at a cross street. It doesn’t seem fair to pedestrians – especially in inclement weather!
Imagine having to try and understand never mind having metal enough on your bike to trigger a traffic light in Pyongyang North Korea. At least here in North America we can see a light change.
In N Korea they have turned off the traffic lights and have put women into a circle to direct traffic. I still can’t figure out what the signals mean!
C. T.
Ha! Reminds me of friends talking about navigating traffic circles in Europe while looking for directions…and ending up going around and around in circles!