Not covering the front sensor at intersections--does it matter?

[TunaBug]

I regularly get frustrated by people who stop one car length away from the front of the intersection, leaving the front-most sensor untriggered. I have always assumed that covering more sensors would indicate more demand and thus cause a green light a little bit faster. Does anybody know if it really matters? Does the logic at the intersection take somebody sitting on the second sensor as good enough?

Really what I'm wondering is, am I getting frustrated for nothing at the dimwits people who can't pull all the way forward? Or, God forbid, should I be doing the same thing? ()

By the way, I am posting in Northwest because I have no clue how standardized traffic light logic is. Does it work the same in other states? Frankly, at the time I learned to drive in Texas they didn't even have these new-fangled left coast traffic lights.

 

[Rocky_H]

leaving the front-most sensor untriggered. I have always assumed that covering more sensors

I know of the sensor. You can frequently see the ring cut in the pavement for it. I didn't think any additional sensors were a thing that existed. I've never seen a second (or any additional) sensors. I don't think the logic has to know how many cars. The need is just to know if there are zero cars there or not. If it's zero cars, then it can skip the cycle on that side. If there is at least one car, then it will trigger the sensor to turn on the green. And then I think it gets to keep detecting if additional cars keep passing over that one sensor or not to see if it can end the cycle early.

It's a known thing in the motorcycle world that the bike doesn't have enough metal to trigger the sensor, so you intentionally pull extra far forward to try to entice the car behind you to come up far enough to activate the sensor.

 

[DSolie]

The ground loop just detects that there is an object (unless you are a frikkin motorcycle) that is at the intersection. One or 100 vehicles doesn't matter. That ground loop triggers the signalization timer that sets in motion some countdown (set by the municipality). As long as a vehicle with an appropriate amount of metal is on top of it, the cycle is triggered.

 

[TunaBug]

At intersections around me it is common for there to be multiple loops. One at the front, another one a car length behind, and a third a few more car lengths behind those. In each lane. I have always assumed that they are completely separate and that if people just act normal it's enough to indicate "one", "two", or "many". But to be clear, "assumed".

Re the frikkin motorcycle: many lanes will have an "X" on the front-right of the loop (the X is cut in the pavement, the center of the X crossing the loop, and filled with the same tar or whatever protects the loop. That's to mark the most sensitive area that is supposed to be tuned to pick up bicycles. But probably the Cascade Bicycle Club has more political pull around here than, say, Olympia or Boise. When I used to cycle to work I always felt like they did a good job. But then I'm in an area surrounded by Microsoft, Amazon, and Google's largest dev campus outside CA: so lotsa well paid nerds cycling to work and funding the cycling activists.