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How to trigger traffic lights on your motorcycle
Many traffic lights now have vehicle sensors in the turn lane or even in all lanes that will only change a light if there is a vehicle there. These sensors work by detecting the amount of metal over them. Motorcycles often don’t meet the metal requirements.
This will not work on a traffic light that doesn’t have a sensor! It doesn’t force all lights to change immediately. The only thing it does is increase the chances that the sensor will detect your motorcycle!
The solution is magnets. There are some commercial items available that you can purchase to solve the issue. However, if you have access to an old hard drive and some sugru – then you can make it yourself!
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On the left is a sugru packet and a hard drive magnet. Actually, its two hard drive magnets – the paper towel is doubled over and keeping them separated. There are plenty of places that will show you how to get the magnets out of the hard drive, so I won’t cover that here. Fair warning – the hard drive will be destroyed.
For this project, I used two sugru packets and two hard drive magnets. |
| On the right is the magnet wrapped in sugru. I left a bit of the magnet exposed, but wrapped a good, protective lip around the edges. From here, you just stick the sugru to the bottom of the front forks. Make sure that it will not interfere with anything and won’t have to be removed for any maintenance or tire changes.
I wrapped the sugru up over the fork edge because I wanted it showing and wanted more secure attachment. I’m sure it could be hidden from sight if you wanted. |
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About three hours after applying this to both forks, I rode over some rough streets and then on the interstate and on home on bumpy roads – about 22 miles in all. It is still attached. I haven’t had the opportunity to test the effectiveness at troublesome lights yet, but will do as soon as possible and add an update here.