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New Law in Virginia - Good News


BlueRidgeBoy

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BlueRidgeBoy

Good news from The Old Dominion: tomorrow (7/1/'11) a new law takes effect that allows motorcycle operators to turn left on red after waiting two minutes or two cycles of the traffic signal, whichever is shorter. Chapter 471, Section 46.2-833, paragraph 1.b, Code of Virginia. Enacted by the 2011 General Assembly and signed by the Gov. !!! Hurray

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Lone_RT_rider

It sounds like the same law we have here in the Carolinas! Very cool. Now if they will just revoke the death penalty for speeding on I-81, VA should be fine. ;)

 

 

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Now if they will just revoke the death penalty for speeding on I-81,

and join the other 49 states which allow radar detectors.

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I'm not envisioning the circumstances where such a law is necessary or useful. Even if traffic is heavy, at least one vehicle can turn left each cycle. If you are fifth in line, are you going to start passing the cars ahead of you after two cycles? And a two minute cycle is really rare. Even a 90 second light made news here in central Ohio a few years ago. What am I missing here?

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DaveTheAffable
I'm not envisioning the circumstances where such a law is necessary or useful. Even if traffic is heavy, at least one vehicle can turn left each cycle. If you are fifth in line, are you going to start passing the cars ahead of you after two cycles? And a two minute cycle is really rare. Even a 90 second light made news here in central Ohio a few years ago. What am I missing here?

 

Here in southern california there are many left turn pockets where I have sat for 2 or 3 cycles, with no left turn arrow appearing. Even though they are 30 second cycles, if no one pulls into the pocket behind me, there I sit.

 

So.... I can see the benefit.

 

By the way... Welcome! Looks like you're 'newer' amongst us. I see in one of your previous posts you got an RT. I LOVE my RT. :wave:

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I'm not envisioning the circumstances where such a law is necessary or useful. Even if traffic is heavy, at least one vehicle can turn left each cycle. If you are fifth in line, are you going to start passing the cars ahead of you after two cycles? And a two minute cycle is really rare. Even a 90 second light made news here in central Ohio a few years ago. What am I missing here?

 

Evening lkraus

 

What you are missing is that not all lights are continuous functioning on a regular timer. Some stay red in one direction UNTIL a vehicle comes along and triggers a road imbedded sensor to make the light change to green. Here is the problem, some of those road sensors are a bit lazy and just won’t EVER initiate the light change for a motorcycle sized vehicle.

Conceivably a motorcycle could sit at one of those type red lights for ever.

Most states have some sort of stuck red light rule to cover those situations.

 

 

 

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Hmmm... I can't remember where I heard it, but I always thought that when you're stuck at a light like that, it's considered to be malfunctioning, and you're free to treat it as a stop sign.

 

Or at least that's what I plan to tell the officer and/or judge, if it comes up...

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WestyLancs

That's the excuse I had ready here in the UK when I worked shifts. Some days at stupid o'clock the sensor wouldn't trigger so after a decent delay and check for other traffic, through I'd go. Nice to have it confirmed in legislation though to avoid confusion.

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Hmmm... I can't remember where I heard it, but I always thought that when you're stuck at a light like that, it's considered to be malfunctioning, and you're free to treat it as a stop sign.

 

Or at least that's what I plan to tell the officer and/or judge, if it comes up...

 

Morning elkroeger

 

That might depend on the state you are in & their (the police) interpretation of the existing laws.

 

Many years ago before our state had a defined law regarding motorcycles and non changing lights I took an advanced riders course offered mainly to motorcycle police officers.

On the way to that class I got stopped at the same non changing red light almost every morning as it just wouldn’t change in my direction for my motorcycle.

Obviously, I would let it cycle a couple of times then run it red.

 

One morning when we had a pre class kind of BS session I asked the group of mostly new motor officers how they would handle a motorcycle running a red light under those conditions. A strange look came over most of them as they looked at each other before offering “me” any advise. It took a while to get them talking about it but the group consensus was that if they witnessed me sitting there with the light cycling a few times but not giving me a green light to go they might stop me but wouldn’t ticket me (remember these are mostly motorcycle cops). A few did add that I was breaking the law and they did know of a few hard nosed traffic enforcement officers that probably would ticket me.

A couple offered up that if they only saw me run the red light but didn’t actually whiteness me sitting there through a couple of changes I might be ticketed for running a red light.

 

So that begged the question from me of: what should a person do in those circumstances. The pretty universal answer was to either wait for a car to come up & trip the light or make a right hand turn on red (legal at that time) then turn around.

 

Most agreed that if I actually got a ticket I could probably beat it in court with a call to the state road commission to get the light triggering evaluated then a copy of the report to the court.

 

The nice thing about a dedicated law governing motorcycles and non changing traffic lights is it takes the guessing out of what to do or what will happen if you do this or that.

 

 

 

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What you are missing is that not all lights are continuous functioning on a regular timer. Some stay red in one direction UNTIL a vehicle comes along and triggers a road imbedded sensor to make the light change to green. Here is the problem, some of those road sensors are a bit lazy and just won’t EVER initiate the light change for a motorcycle sized vehicle.

Conceivably a motorcycle could sit at one of those type red lights for ever.

Most states have some sort of stuck red light rule to cover those situations.

 

 

 

Aha! Maybe my old bike ('82 Seca 650) had enough iron that this was never a problem for me. I suppose the RT's minimal subframes might not be enough to trigger some lights. Locally, I'm seeing more use of motion detectors to trigger lights, rather than embedded induction loops. Which caused new concerns until I learned they were not video cameras (not that I am fully convinced Big Brother isn't watching).

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Glenn Reed
The nice thing about a dedicated law governing motorcycles and non changing traffic lights is it takes the guessing out of what to do or what will happen if you do this or that.

 

 

 

Well sort of. As you pointed out, some of the officers said they would react differently if they rolled up just as you went through the light, as opposed to a situation where they saw you wait through several cycles.

 

I think that dichotomy hasn't really changed. If an officer is driving in the vicinity and just happens to be in the area when you finally give up and go through the light, how will s/he know that you actually waited through several cycles? Yes, you might be able to convince them of this, but depending on a lot of circumstances, sometimes you might not. Now you're back to having to go through the courts process. The only real difference is that now you have a definitive law covering the situation which makes it understandable from your point of view, but probably no objective evidence to support your side of the story.

 

I agree that this type of law makes sense, I remember a particular left turn light near a buddies house in Reynoldsburg Ohio that would almost never change when we were on the bikes, so we would scout it out and go when there was nobody coming from a conflicting path. It was always worrisome.

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