Here in LA there are dedicated bike routes.  Hard to believe I know.  Unfortunately, city planners didn’t take that meaning to heart and failed to include sensors sensitive enough to detect bicyclists at traffic lights.  This often means sitting at a light for up to five minutes, pushing the pedestrian button, or waiting for a vehicle to pull up.

First off it’s important to know that traffic light sensors (called traffic loop sensors) buried just beneath the pavement’s surface aren’t triggered by a car’s weight, but by the magnetic field the vehicle generates.  Ed Richley knew this and says he’s built a device suitable in size for a bicycle that can output a comparable single to ‘trick’ the lights into changing.  Called the Traffic Loop Sensor Activator, it’s currently in prototype form only, but Ed, who already managed to patent the device, is looking for manufacturing partners to take it main stream and hopefully in a much smaller size.

Sign me up Ed.

[Wired]