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Comment by eli | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, sorry, I still don't think that's OK. There may be reasons for running a red light, but "it's late and I'm impatient" isn't one of them.

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As a cyclist, though, sometimes the light will never turn. Most states treat bicycles identically to cars as far as red lights go. So, sorry, but I'm not going to wait at a red light for 45 minutes when it's freezing out for a car to show up and switch the light for me.

The perfectly legal way to handle that is to get off your bike and walk the crosswalk with it.

I used to do that. It gets old really fast. If you want to make a left-hand turn, you have to bike over to the crosswalk, press the button, wait thirty seconds for the light to change, walk across, (another thirty seconds on a wide street), press the crosswalk button again, wait another thirty seconds, walk across the street again (another thirty seconds). If you have a few red lights on your way home that can easily add ten minutes to your travel time. At a certain point common sense trumps obeying every technicality of the law.

I'm skeptical that there are very many lights that would take more than a few minutes to change even without a car.

Maybe cyclists should just be allowed to proceed through a red light since they are unlikely to hurt anyone besides themselves... But the rule does kinda make sense. If there are lights that rely on car sensors then obviously fixing that would be the right thing to do regardless of the law.

Car sensors aren't infallible, even for cars. Last week, after (presumably related) heavy snow, I found a "delayed signal" that wouldn't turn green for in the delayed direction for my Honda Civic.

At least on my ride home some of the lights default to remaining green along the major street unless a car trips the sensor on the intersecting street. Unless a car comes along it will never change.

There's a couple in my area, so they can't be that rare. They're on arterial roads with small side-streets or shopping center exits, and after a certain hour at night, the signal never cycles unless a car trips the sensor on the smaller road.

How would the red-light camera affect you as a cyclist, anyway? Bicycles don't have license details affixed to them, and also shouldn't trigger the camera for exactly the same reason they won't trigger the light-change cycle.

I can still get a ticket from an officer.

That'd be a pretty easy ticket to beat. Telling the cop it's a sensor light you can't trigger is going to work on any reasonable officer, and if not it's going to be pretty easy to contest in traffic court.

>and also shouldn't trigger the camera for exactly the same reason they won't trigger the light-change cycle.

I have a similar problem on my motorcycle. There are many lights which are not triggered by my being there. But the camera's always know. I wish they used the same loop / detector!

In some locations, there are exceptions for cyclists at lights which "never turn." In Virginia, since July 2011, it's two minutes or two cycles of the light § 46.2-833 B:

"Notwithstanding any other provision of law, if a driver of a motorcycle or moped or a bicycle rider approaches an intersection that is controlled by a traffic light, the driver or rider may proceed through the intersection on a steady red light only if the driver or rider (i) comes to a full and complete stop at the intersection for two complete cycles of the traffic light or for two minutes, whichever is shorter, (ii) exercises due care as provided by law, (iii) otherwise treats the traffic control device as a stop sign, (iv) determines that it is safe to proceed, and (v) yields the right of way to the driver of any vehicle approaching on such other highway from either direction. "

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