Councils switching off streetlights?

[Ogri]

Strange thing, when I was a long distance driver, I found streetlights to be highly counter-productive to road safety.

Your night vision is important as a driver too, and driving into and out of streetlight areas was a total pita.

From a crime point of view, lighting up intended victims to make them/property easy to see, and making their approach and exit path to/from them/it clearly visible, doesn't seem to be eminently sensible either.

I've been burgled twice, and both times, it was properties with exceptionally well lit access and departure. One in fact, had a courtyard with 7 high intensity 'security' lights right outside the front door.

They didn't stop the front door being smashed in with a sledge hammer and the place being ransacked and trashed though.

PS. Could always ask if they will be so keen on Streetlights, after the Public cottons on to what they have been up to, and they end up swinging and dancing in the air from those very same Streetlights . . .

PPS. Plus ask them what the Health and Safety Standards are for using Streetlights for lynchings? lmao!

[russ]

I've been burgled twice, and both times, it was properties with exceptionally well lit access and departure. One in fact, had a courtyard with 7 high intensity 'security' lights right outside the front door.

They probably thought "how nice of the owner to think of our health & safety by erecting these high power lights so we can see what we are doing".

[Ogri]

They probably thought "how nice of the owner to think of our health & safety by erecting these high power lights so we can see what we are doing".

Spot on Russ.

eta: you won't believe this, but both burglaries had the insurance Company refuse to pay out, because the burglars 'broke in'. I have only ever had legally required insurance ever since (which has saved me a fortune over the years).

[Carbon Brush]

Something to throw in on the technical issues of street light turn off & dimming.

A 'basic' installation comprises a lamp, with a photocell, connected to a mains supply that is not metered. When it gets dark, the light turns on. In the morning, it turns off. The council agree an annual fee with the electricity company. This is a simple system with low maintenance cost. There is no incentive to change. I think that most long standing installations are of this type.

If you have a more complex turn on/off, you have to start spending money. You need a timer, as well as a photocell. Some timers are clever and calculate sunrise/set times if tell them their lat/long. But this type of circuit could turn off at midnight. It could turn on again at 5am, unless the sun was up, etc, etc. But the timers and other circuits cost money. The clock drifts so needs periodic resetting. all of this needs to be housed somewhere. One circuit per lamp? A roadside box serving a group of lamps? More complex cabling is needed.

Then if you want dimming on gas discharge (sodium) type lamps, there is more compexity. You need the timer described above and a large transformer. The transformer is switched between full mains voltage and a bit (10%) lower at certain times. This is difficult to make work because the lamps are 'reactive loads' on the mains, not 'resistive' loads. don't worry what this means expect the control circuits become difficult and expensive to make.

Financially it is very difficult to justify dimming or turn off. Overnight electricity is cheap. The control equipment for timing and dimming is expensive.

Councils will only undertake the more complex schemes if threatened with the 'green' stick, or a good finiancial case for power savings.

[Ogri]

Why put one streetlamp in when a 100 will do?

100 times more streetlamps means 100 times more in the brown envelopes . . .

[Rob1961]

This was discussed on 'PM' on Radio 4 last night (I think) - typically one sided discussion about how turning off/ dimming lights would lead to an increase in traffic accidents, burgulary and the assumption by the presenter that lighting would not be switched on at all on any roads. It's a shame they didn't bother contacting anyone from the CDS to comment or highlight most of the policies have been focussed on the 0.00 to 5.00 timeslots and would make sense in most reasidential areas off main roads.

[yesyes]

having read this, had to check... my council are, apparently, running a 3 year programme to replace all council lights with variable intensity white lights, ...

How do you find out those things? I've had a look at my council's website and there's no information whatsoever what their plans might be...