Cyclists in Denmark can turn red lights green with special RFID tag

There are a few crossroads in Liverpool where a little green bike lights up below the main lights and gives cyclists in the box at the front of a line of motorists a head start. 

Unfortunately it gives a head start of less than 2 seconds. Just enough time to clip in and push off before you're swamped by the motorists behind you - enraged at the idea of you filtering to the front AND having a light that allows you to set off before them! 

Lights, sensors, special lanes, hi vis? None of them will create more cyclists in the UK. Public information films asking drivers to share the road, slow down and respect their friends and families on bicycles would make a lot of difference. Unfortunately the government department that used to produce public information films was shut 4 years ago and it now seems un PC to advise the Great British Motorist on how they might drive less selfishly. 

Fantastic idea to encourage cycling. It would be good to set the sensor a fair bit in front of the traffic light to avoid stopping.

Shame people are turning this into a headline battle with roadcc

Can you please change the headline to something like "RFID tag gives cyclists a green light".

As it stands, the headline is spectacularly misleading and gives ammunition to those who go on about "all cyclists jump red lights". The device doesn't allow cyclists to "sail through red lights" but acts as a better version of the old induction loops to activate the green light.

@racyrich: Whether "sailing" is the right word depends on the setup. I'm also confused here. The article actually refers to two different systems, the European and the Utah one. Apparently in Utah you actually have to stop as close to the sensor as possible, and then I don't see why it's better than just have a button to push.

The European system, however, seems to detect moving cyclists and has the sensor well before the lights so that the lights change before the cyclist reaches the junction without having to stop.

As further improvments, the lights should also have a countdown timer that tells approaching cyclists when they switch to green, so that you can slow down or speed up as needed without having to stop. Such timers would be good anyway, as you never know if you actually triggered the system or not.

You could even measure their speed along a whole stretch of road and time the sequence accordingly. In Vienna I've seen a helpful speedometer on a cycle path that tells you at what speed you're going, and what speed you should go to reach the next set of lights just when they switch to green.

So they'll be sailing through a green light in actual fact. 

'Sailing' being a bit of an exageration as you stop first and wait for the lights to be activated. And if there are cyclists from both directions them nothing much has changed except you're not waiting for a car to trigger the lights.