Potential Street Light Solution

[Tutankhpip]

I can understand that people walking around need to see where they are going at night time, so I pose a question; what do astronomers do to prevent themselves from tripping up and knocking things over at night?... Precisely, we use red lights. Now, this has probably been considered before but why not install red lights instead of the standard 'there is no sky' lights?

Anyway, I would love to hear what you folks think about it

[richbyers]

sounds a good idea, mind you i bet theyd have a come back for not having them- safety reasons or something

rich

[george7378]

Wouldn't red lights still wash out the sky, but with a red glow instead of orange?

[richbyers]

ahh wait your right, red light's only useful for keeping night vision in a dark sky, it wouldnt make a difference, light is light, it will still ruin it

rich

[Tutankhpip]

Ah pants! Thought I had a Dragons Den worthy product there Ah well, back to the drawing board

[EA2007]

red light districts......hmm, maybe not family friendly

[yesyes]

Makes me wonder how our ancestors survived before they had street lights.

Or all these health and safety regulations....

[MarkF]

Makes me wonder how our ancestors survived before they had street lights.

Or all these health and safety regulations....

Only the fittest/smartest survived in those days, unfortunately H&S is responsible for watering down the gene pool now, soon we will all be able to watch Big Brother and enjoy it!!

I have lived in my village since the late sixties, wandering around in the dark as a kid on winters evenings was no problem, apart from one spooky footpath I had to run down as fast as I could. We used an old fashioned device called a torch to spot trip hazards, it was common sense in those days. Of course now there are street lights everywhere as the village has grown.

The solution is to switch every other one off after 2100hrs and the lot off after midnight.

[kidlands]

It does seem a waste having all the street lamps on after say midnight when probably 90% of the population is in bed. I'm a shift worker and it wouldn't bother me with them off.

There is a road near me that has catseyes that glow, they are powered somehow during the day (solar?) and glow all night. I've switched my headlights off while driving along the road with no traffic and its like being in the film Tron. Lots of these on the roads would help the 'oh its too dark' H&S brigade, we could keep lights at juctions on I suppose.

[LukeSkywatcher]

I agree. Switch off motorway lights at midnight. I was driving along one on my way to the airport last week at 4am and the whole way to the airport i didnt see a single other car or vehicle of any kind. Cats eyes are enough for you to see and know where you are going.........and your own car lights of course.

[Shibby]

I've switched my headlights off while driving along the road with no traffic and its like being in the film Tron.

Sweet, we found another way to reduce light pollution!

[lifechooser]

They do that near us. The motorway lights are off from midnight to 5am.

Ignoring the astronomy aspect, I hate street lights anyway - in winter they throw my bodyclock out as they seem to be as bright as the daylight. If they got rid of them, people would learn to use torches soon enough.

[Si W]

Whats so hard about reducing light polution , just replacing high wattage bulbs when they blow, with a shield and a lower wattage bulb, and direct the light where it should be going, down. No one is say replace every bulb with a lower wattage bulb and a shield all at once, it would take time, but eventual they would get round to all of them. At the end of the day it's a no brainer, whats wrong with these councils and there councillors, cant they see past this years annual budget. Sorry about the rant Peeps, but it just gets my back up , they would even save money on the reduction in electricity used. And a scheme like this would pay for itself.

If the above was adopted along with some of the other good ideas on this thread, like motorway lights etc, everyone is a winner.

[the_laughing_crow]

I'd imagine some councils are concerned about their statutory responsibilities.... perhaps thats why turning lights off from 1am - 4am isnt more prevalent.

I mean they stand to save money so there must be a reason why it isnt the "no brainer" we all seem to think it is.

[pbyrne]

I wonder are they worried about someone falling in the dark and putting in a claim stating that the area is inadequately lit?

I would not like to see anyone getting hurt, but if a successful claim was lodged I would then believe that they would go on overkill and flood the areas with lights.

There is an area south of where I live, it is a rural road, busy enough during the day, not gridlock or anything, and not used too much at night. The council recently updated the footpaths on either side, they intalled streetlights at the rate of one every ten metres or so, on either side, for a distance of about two hundred metres. What is baffling about this is that there are only a handful of buildings on this road and only a few are residences. On the road to the south of these lights there are none, after it to the north, there are only a couple and this one spot is highly illuminated. It doesn't serve any purpose that I can see, I have driven it a number of times at night and have yet to see a single person walking on it.

Why are the council prepared to waste such a large amount of money on this?

I would have thought that with the environment being such a hot topic that the likes of these projects would have been shelved.

Saying that, if the British Greens are anything like the Irish Greens, don't look for help from that quarter.

[ScruffyOne]

The council by me just put a sign up saying that as of this week, they will be turning the streetlights off at a certain time. Hopefully it wont be ridiculously late so I can do some stargazing! i miss living out in the middle of nowhere where it actually went DARK at night. Imagine that, when the sun went down, it went DARK, not orange.

[Digz]

We are being asked on more and more projects (I work as an Architect) to specify external lighting which is a) low energy but specified to prevent any lightspill. That is to say the lighting lights the immediate area and doesnt 'bleed' out or indeed up!

As Si W said a shield seems a perfect idea, after all we only need to light the pavement / road below and not the sky above. I would imagine a simple solution like this could be very effective and prevent unnecessary lightspill.

[pbyrne]

a simple solution like this could be very effective and prevent unnecessary lightspill.

Don't forget that you are dealing with a council and simple solutions are not in their remit.

[BAZ Senior]

I suppose it's the hypocrisy that gets my goat, telling domestic households to install energy efficient bulbs, turn off anything that's not in use, and then they light up every public building.

There are business's that leave office lights on when there's no one inside the building, and then they have hundreds, if not thousands of watts of security lighting around industrial area's blazing away.

And they are telling me to save energy! ....Right. I pay the highest amount for my energy, out of any business, council, or local authority.

If they charged every one the same tariff for electricity, then you would see the lights going off.

I'll get off my soapbox now..

[Pauly]

Our street lights go off about 01:00. It's surprising how un-dark the dark actually is when there are no lights on. I regularly rode home by the light of the moon in my yoof. I had a motorbike with totally **** lights, the moon was brighter.

[Martyn_Bannister]

I wonder are they worried about someone falling in the dark and putting in a claim stating that the area is inadequately lit?

<snip>

I'm with you! Inadequately lit? It's NIGHTTIME for cry sakes. It get's dark at nighttime

[splatt]

We have had new streetlights put in in our county and the next one over that direct all the light downwards. Supposedly they are low energy and are designed to reduce light pollution under some EU directive. They dont emit orange light, more of a standard domestic bulb light.

Surely this means new lights going up all over the country?

[Digz]

Don't forget that you are dealing with a council and simple solutions are not in their remit.

Hahaha, yeah thats true.

It does also get my goat about office lighting being on all night with no occupants. There has been a trial across the country where all these lights were to be switched off but I cant for the life of me recall what it was called and how successful it was.

[ScruffyOne]

Out on Gower, they have changed all the lights, and the difference is amazing. you get really good views of the sky from just off the pavements. its mad how little light goes upwards. they should have them everywhere.