Street lights

[nightfisher]

might just have to try that laser trick, thanks chaps

[inksmithy]

www.3yg.co.uk for your green laser needs...

[damnut]

A street lamp backs on to our garden, used to cast a horrible orange glow...now its dark,, two lengths of 10ft batten with a dogs leg paintbrush and a tin of hammerite..darkness priceless.

[PortableAstronomer]

I still don't see the point of a night long lamp switched on when nobody is walking around. WHAT A WASTE!

The point is the perceived feeling of security by the public, even if statistics have shown in cases where crime reduces without street lights, the public still associate darkness with monsters and other creepy ideas.

Facebook now seems to have quite a few protest groups, these two are just for one town.

Corby Street Lights Leave Them Off | Facebook

Log in | Facebook (Corby streetlights, leave them on)

The latest I heard is that the they're trying to do a petition for a mobile blood donor service to come into town with a petition to sign inside it to "switch the lights back on again". The effectiveness of the scaremongering is really quite depressing.

It all goes down to what people want, not what they need. Since they pay council tax, I can understand the need for local authorities to deliver what the masses are asking for and address the fear of crime, but it has to be balanced with *unbiased* studies (i.e. not sponsored by lighting companies) about the link between good/bad lighting, and crime.

People may be very hard-up financially and may have to accept they can't afford to go on holiday or eat-out as much as they used to, or maybe spend less for Christmas presents, but the irony is that at the same time they might even be happy scrape together more pennies for an increase in the global illumination of the night sky to turn night into day.

Fear counts for everything there, and many newspaper editors know it.