Small vehicle safety of Traffic lights
In some instances the stoplight traffic detector will not change the light for small vehicles such as motorcycles and scooters. This is the result of the inability of the sensors to detect the presence of the small vehicle. A vehicle with sufficient mass consisting of a metal such as steel interacts with the sensors magnetic field causing the light to change at the appropriate time. Motorcycles and scooters have much less mass than cars, resulting in a failure to trigger the sensor. This situation most often occurs at the times of day when other traffic is sparse as well as when the small vehicle is coming from a direction that does not have a high volume of traffic. Not all sensor traffic lights have this problem. There are some that can pick up these vehicles without problems and most are capable of doing so, however through road construction and other processes they are not properly adjusted or calibrated for the small vehicles. The rider of the vehicle itself may not stop at the proper location on the sensor if it is hard to visibly detect, resulting in the light not changing.
While the implications of this occurrence appear to be trivial, there are some important consequences that follow. Safety is a concern that arises when a motorist eventually has no other choice than to pass through the intersection while the light is red, or perform a U turn in a scenario where doing so would be risky. People who encounter this on a daily basis they may be discouraged from operating smaller more fuel efficient vehicles.