Gas prices yesterday, April 4, 2007, spiked to $4.00 per gallon in some parts of the United States. And the worsening, and seemingly untenable situation in the oil-rich Middle-East has some prognosticators heralding prices of $6.00 per gallon by year’s end. Americans are, quite justifiably anxious, alarmed, and seeking more fuel efficient (cheaper) means of transportation. This has led to more and more people buying and driving smaller vehicles that deliver more miles per gallon.
The first choice of Americans seeking more fuel efficient transportation seems to be the smaller, lighter somewhat traditional cars and trucks with more fuel efficient engines. Then come the hybrids, with their advanced systems of propulsion sharing. And finally, the scooters.
Many scooters comfortably surpass the 50-miles per gallon mark on the charts, some by quite a lot. And they are available in a growing number of styles, sizes and configurations. With sales of scooters having more than doubled since 2000, companies like Yamaha and Honda are offering some truly luxurious and efficient selections to choose from. The Yamaha Morphous, Yamaha Majesty, Honda Silver Wing (and Silver Wing ABS), and Honda Big Ruckus attest to the range and luxury that is becoming available in scooters.
Before we get to the point of this article, let’s take a look at the fuel cost savings for a range of vehicles that includes scooter miles per gallon. The following annual fuel cost chart assumes that the driver goes 10,000 miles per year and that fuel costs remain constant at $3.00 per gallon.
Miles Per Gallon Annual Cost
10 $3,000.00
15 $2,000.00
20 $1,500.00
30 $1,000.00
40 $750.00
50 $600.00
60 $500.00
70 $428.57
80 $375.00
The above chart leaves little doubt about the potential savings in fuel, when a driver opts to ride a 50-MPG scooter instead of driving a 15-MPG vehicle. But new scooter riders, as well as those buying smaller cars and trucks, are quickly discovering a problem that motorcyclists have had to cope with since the early 1960’s.
The vast majority of traffic signals are controlled by what are called “inductive loops.” These are coils of wire buried beneath the road’s surface at intersections. A small current is run through the wire, thus creating an electromagnet. When enough iron is present inside these loops, they send a signal to the light’s controller that starts its cycle. In brief, the inductive loops trigger green lights – including green left turn arrows.
When there is inadequate iron present inside the inductive loop, the green light does not trigger because the controller doesn’t detect a need for the signal light to change. Motorcycles, scooters, small cars, small trucks and many 4×4 vehicles just don’t have enough iron to trigger the green light. In the case of the 4x4s, there is likely enough iron, but it is too high above the road’s surface for these weak electromagnets to detect.
If a vehicle is traveling on a busy road, then there is likely to be no problem getting a green light to trigger. This is due to the presence of so many vehicles in each of the inductive loops at intersections during busy and peak traffic times. The problem of getting a green light to trigger occurs when the scooter, motorcycle or small vehicle is somewhat alone on the road – such as early in the morning or late at night. Riders and drivers can sit for quite some time waiting for another vehicle to come along and trigger the green light.
But take heart – there’s an easy solution: Signal Sorcerer