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motorcycles maybe allowed to run red lights

MN has had that law for a while now ... it's a good law, because many of the older street light sensors won't pick up a motorcycle.

Quote:

169.06 Subdivision 9. Affirmative defense relating to unchanging traffic-control signal.

(a) A person operating a motorcycle who violates subdivision 4 by entering or crossing an intersection controlled by a traffic-control signal against a red light has an affirmative defense to that charge if the person establishes all of the following conditions:
(1) the motorcycle has been brought to a complete stop;
(2) the traffic-control signal continues to show a red light for an unreasonable time;
(3) the traffic-control signal is apparently malfunctioning or, if programmed or engineered to change to a green light only after detecting the approach of a motor vehicle, the signal has apparently failed to detect the arrival of the motorcycle; and
(4) no motor vehicle or person is approaching on the street or highway to be crossed or entered or is so far away from the intersection that it does not constitute an immediate hazard.

(b) The affirmative defense in this subdivision applies only to a violation for entering or crossing an intersection controlled by a traffic-control signal against a red light and does not provide a defense to any other civil or criminal action.

Does this have to do with that problem of motorcycles not being able to trigger the sensors of the traffic signals, or something of that sort? I'm just wondering how Joe Motorcyclist is supposed to know which signals he can cross through, which ones he can't, and how he's supposed to prove that he met the conditions listed above if he does get pulled over. And, of course, there will be those who abuse this.

u have to be sitting at the light for at least 2 minutes......

Every day on the road, I see people willing to put their own lives, as well as the lives around them, at risk for the sake of saving a potential minute, half of a minute, ten seconds, etc. from their trip. How many people are really going to wait two whole minutes when they figure they can always claim that two minutes had elapsed, knowing that there'll be no real way to prove them wrong?

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeffTheTerrible

I know in MN, if you run a red light, and the "red light camera" catches you, the ticket displays how long the light was red ... but without witnesses, it'd be your word against whomever wrote you the ticket.

--Dave.

I can see why they have this. I remember sitting at a light forever, and it not being able to detect me at all. Fortunately the cure for that is I never drive anything with less than four wheels anymore. :)

I've actually been in this situation in a big truck too. I remember coming up to a light somewhere in Greensboro, and I guess some other truck was half in my lane or something. I can't quite remember the exact details, but I do remember that when I got to the light, I was all out of whack to trigger the sensor. I sat through four cycles of the light, and I had traffic backed up all the way to the Interstate behind me, so I said the hell with it, and ran the red light at the part of the cycle when I was supposed to have had a green.