Modern Vespa

My neighborhood has stoplights that appear to be weight activated, meaning you drive the car onto a certain section of the of the road, a sensor in the road detects the weight of the vehicle, and changes the light. The trouble that I'm having is that my BV500 is too light to trip the sensor.

Anyone else have this issue and how do you deal with it??? Tonight, I got off my scooter, walked it onto the sidewalk, pressed the button for pedestrians, pushed the scooter into the crosswalk, the hopped on and rode away. A nearby cop probably thought this was amusing, but just passed me by.

I'll be corrected if I'm wrong, but most lights are activated by a metal sensor and not by weight. If you proceed safely after waiting through the light, I think most police would let you off the hook. Maybe. This has been my course of action in these cases.

Almost all of the sensors, if not all of them, are not weight activated, but are a metal detector of sorts. If you notice the cut lines in the pavement, a wire is in the pavement in those cut lines. It is hooked up to a box that uses induction to detect a large metal object. Some are not tuned properly to detect scooters and motorcycles because they have less metal than cars. It can be helpful to stop the bike over the cut line. There are also products for sale (Green Light Trigger), but there are drastically varying degrees of effectiveness reported.

edit: oops, posted at the same time as oldhighway7

I just called the police department. They said that they wouldn't have a problem if I treated the intersection as if it had a malfunctioning stop light (stop, check for traffic, then proceed). Although now that I know how they work, I'll try stopping on the cut lines to see if it triggers the light. Thanks!

They are not weight activated, they detect a break in a electo-magnetic field. Some people claim that positioning yourself n the middle of the loop and turning your engine off and then on will work; it doesn't. Some people claim that magnets attached to the bottom of your bike will trip the field; that doesn't work. Some companies sell gizmo-gadgets that they claim wil trip the field; they don't work.

You have these options:

[1] Take a right turn, and do a U-turn (and then do a right-turn if you are going straight).

[2] In many states you can legally cross the intersection if there is no oncoming traffic and the light does not change in a reasonable amount of time.

[3] If there is a car behind you, creap forward so that the car behind you also moves forward and trips the field.

======================

Here's one the does work: Stop over the cut in the street. Tap your center stand on the pavement.

I have to do this almost daily at one intersection on my route. Works for me and several others have reported it works as well.

If you dont want to mess with pushing your stand down. The BMW shop in Roseville CA USA sells a maginet that you mount under your scooter that will trip the sensor.

Not sure of the cost as I dont mind running a few lights...

I've had good luck getting the engine over the "seem" on either the right or left side of the sensor. I drive a GT - not sure if the LX would have the same success (smaller engine, less metal) but it should work.