Don't worry, this isn't an article about an unfair advantage for motorcycles, as if state legislatures are trying to create chaos. Quite the contrary, "Dead Red" laws help motorcyclists pass through intersections where traffic light sensors treat bikes like ghosts.
The most common traffic light detection system is the inductive loop sensor, which uses coils of wire under the pavement to detect vehicles entering its magnetic field (they do not operate by weight). Unfortunately for our two-wheeled brethren, there's often not enough magnetic material in a bike to measurably change the inductance. So motorcycles can end up sitting at an unchanging red light, Rip Van Winkling the hours away until their families gather a search party. Say what you want about issues like lane splitting and lane filtering, but motorcycles do need some laws to help them navigate traffic that don't or can't apply to cars.
To prevent an unending cycle on your cycle, many states have enacted Dead Red laws. These laws let motorcycles run red lights, but don't get the wrong idea. Motorcycle riders aren't allowed to just speed through a red light whenever they want. Each state with a Dead Red law has specific language regarding proper Dead Red etiquette.
There are 21 states with Dead Red laws: Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. Bills introducing Dead Red laws failed in Alabama, Nebraska, and Wyoming. The Massachusetts Senate passed a Dead Red bill in 2019, but it died in the House."
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Some states' Dead Red laws give a surprising amount of leeway and trust to motorcycle riders. Take Minnesota's. As spelled out in Section 169.06, Subdivision 9, motorcyclists can go through a red light as long as they come to a complete stop and the signal is malfunctioning, won't detect the bike, or if the "traffic-control signal continues to show a red light for an unreasonable time." What's an unreasonable time? If you're lucky enough to pilot the Ferrari V8 motorcycle that shouldn't exist (yes, it should), that could be several nanoseconds. Minnesota motorcycle riders may want to check with local law enforcement on their definition of "unreasonable time."
In South Carolina, lawmakers apparently gave serious consideration to this, because that state's Dead Red law requires motorcycles to stop at an intersection "for one hundred twenty seconds." Yup, that's two solid minutes of silently cursing the red light before you can think about rolling through. At least it's only 90 seconds in Utah. In Tennessee, it's the feelings you hold in your heart that matter most, as the law states riders can proceed "under the belief that a traffic-control signal utilized a vehicle detection device or was inoperative due to the size of the motorcycle." So hold tight to that belief when defending your actions to the judge.
In Idaho, motorcycles have to wait through at least one traffic light cycle. Is that light cycle 10 minutes long? Too bad, you're gonna wait, and you're gonna like it.
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Let's say you live in Alabama, Nebraska, Wyoming, Massachusetts, or one of the states that haven't even considered a Dead Red law. Maybe someday you'll get your Dead Red redemption. Hopefully, your state has more sensitive traffic light detection, such as microwave sensors or one of those AutoSense 800 series infrared sensors that the Federal Highway Administration says can "detect tow bars and motorcycles."
If not, well, your solutions are going to be more irritating. You could start by getting a motorcycle with way more metal to fool the induction loop into thinking you're just in a wispy car like a Caterham 7 or BAC Mono. Maybe an NSU car-engined Münch Mammut or a V8-powered Boss Hoss would do the trick. You can also try to get the attention of the car behind you to inch into the sensor loop to trigger it for you. Since you both have the shared goal of getting through the stupid, interminable light, it shouldn't be difficult to coax some cooperation.
A neat trick from Lance Oliver over at Revzilla is to line up your wheels with the pavement cuts at intersections. These cuts tell you where crews sliced into the pavement to install the induction loops, so positioning your bike this way increases your chance of tripping the sensor. If the light still won't turn green, you may just have to make a right turn on red and hope you can circle around. That is, unless you live in a city that's banned right-on-red like Ann Arbor, Michigan, in which case you might want to get a motorcycle that's light enough to hoist on your back and carry down the sidewalk.
