Jeff Kardas
UP TO SPEED
RED LIGHT BLUES
The ongoing struggle with non-motorcycle-friendly traffic signals continues… By Joy Burgess
T
he red light blues. If you’re a street rider, you’ve probably had ’em. You ride up to a red light and you wait, expecting the light to turn green eventually. But when it doesn’t, or it cycles without giving you a left-turn arrow, you start to fidget. Maybe you jump up and down on your seat, hoping to trigger a sensor buried in the ground (which doesn’t work…read on!), or let a car behind you roll up and (hopefully) trigger things. When that doesn’t work, maybe you take a few rights to get where you’re going. “I’ve even put my kickstand down
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AmericanMotorcyclist.com
and run over to a crosswalk to hit the crossing arrow to trigger a traffic light,” said AMA On-Highway Government Relations Manager Tiffany Cipoletti. Or, some folks say “the heck with it,” wait for a safe and clear moment, and run the light, risking a ticket. While you’re likely familiar with the struggle, you may not be aware that 15 states have already passed Traffic Actuated Signal laws — which Cipoletti notes are referred to as “Dead Red” proposals by state motorcycle rights organizations — addressing this issue, which basically allow you to treat
malfunctioning traffic signals as stop signs when it’s safe to proceed. Two additional states — Louisiana (H.B. 150) and Texas (S.B. 1737) — are actively pursuing such legislation. Of course, this does not mean motorcyclists can treat any stoplight like a stop sign. Specifics vary among the 15 states with laws already in place, but one example is Virginia’s current code. It allows riders to proceed through the intersection on a steady red light when a sensor fails to detect the motorcycle only if they: come to a full and complete stop for two minutes or two complete cycles