See that subtle circle on the pavement there? Its technical name is "inductive loop detector," and it senses whether cars or bikes or motorcycles are waiting for a traffic light to turn green.

These things have been the subject of much keening lately, after the Oregonian reported last week on a "bill allowing bicycles, motorcycles to run red lights" (a headline that invited a higher-than-typical amount of invective on the O's already invective-drenched comment boards).

The post is about Senate Bill 553, which would allow cyclists and motorcyclists to proceed, cautiously, through a red light after they've watched and waited for "one full cycle" without being acknowledged by a sensor like the one above. The bill's got legs, the O's Joe Rose reports, with support on both sides of aisle. It's got precedent, too—more than a dozen states have similar laws.

This issue is the reddest and bloodiest of meats for Portland, where bike riders and car drivers are engaged in an eternal brinksmanship, forever topping the others' accusations of lawlessness and abuse of our otherwise civil roadways.

It's also almost completely not applicable here. A Portland traffic light won't leave you hanging. If, that is, you know what you're doing.

I was perhaps a late bloomer re: inductive loop detectors, (not alone, though) but I was several years into a daily commuting routine before I learned how they worked. For a while, I was convinced the light near my then-house—at NE MLK and Tillamook—could NOT detect me, and that I had to go push the pedestrian button to cross if a car wasn't also waiting.

I'd even tell cyclists at the light that the sensor was working against them, as I awkwardly side-shuffled my bike over to the "walk" button. This is embarrassing to think about.

The exact date I was disabused of this nonsense: May 22, 2014. That's when helpful PBOT employee Greg Raisman explained cyclists merely had to wait on the edges of the circles for recognition. They're much more sensitive, he said.

So Public Service Announcement: Even in the absence of one of these guys at a stop light, your plan is to wait in one of two places.

Do this, and you'll almost never have cause to use the controversial riches SB 553 bestows. I say "almost" because Portland is a complex town, with a multitude of traffic situations. If you're leaving Ladd's Addition by certain routes, for instance, the traffic light is programmed to make you wait two cycles before you'll get a green. And there are other lights that might do the same if a sensor doesn't pick up your presence early enough in its internal timing.

Mostly, though, the lights treat cars and bikes the same. Let's all try to get along.