“When Traffic lights Don’t Turn.” I get calls and inquiries about this subject on occasion: “What should I do?” We address this in our Arizona Bicycling Streets Smarts booklet by John Allen (refer to http://www.azbikeped.org/chapter9a.htm — “If your bicycle doesn’t trip the detector, you have to wait for a car to do it, or else you have to go through the red light. Going through the red isn’t against the law, because the light is inoperative. If you ever have a crash or get a traffic ticket because a traffic light won’t turn green, it’s the fault of whoever installed the detector”). It is my understanding that this is allowed under ARS 28-645. C.: “The driver of a vehicle approaching an intersection that has an official traffic control signal that is inoperative shall bring the vehicle to a complete stop before entering the intersection and may proceed with caution only when it is safe to do so”. Allen goes into more detail on traffic signal actuators here — “bicycle-insensitive traffic signal actuators are defective and illegal.” LAB has some general information on the subject here.
Michael N. Sanders
ADOT Bicycle/Pedestrian Coordinator
Bicycle and Pedestrian Program
And here is what Bob Mionske says on the topic:
Once you have located the cut lines in the road and positioned your bicycle above the cut lines, what if the light has still not triggered? . . . It turns out that in every state, this is one instance where you can legally run a red light. . . . to be sure that the signal is defective (and to be able to demonstrate in court that you had sufficient reason to be sure), you should sit through the equivalent of one complete light-cycle –– about three minutes –– without the light being triggered. If you still don’t get the green light, the light is defective, and you can then proceed through the intersection, yielding the right-of-way to any approaching vehicles (Bicycling & the Law: Your Rights as a Cyclist, p. 42).