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How much does [s]a new sodium vapour bulb[/s] an air rifle cost these days?
FTFY
From a selfish point of view no. No fun commuting at 3am, it would be even less so in the pitch black.
You'd be suprised at the amount of folk up and about at that time of morning, something most people and policy makers who have keep "normal" hours don't realise.
Why not employ poor people with torches to light the way home for us? They could be paid in bags of crisps or super strength lager and would be exercise for the poor dears
You'd be suprised at the amount of folk up and about at that time of morning, something most people and policy makers who have keep "normal" hours don't realise.
True, but a surprising number of people in the UK don't have 24 hour light and still somehow manage to avoid walking into deadly spike pits or being eaten by bears. 😀
anotherdeadhero - Member
Apart from RTC ...
What did I do? 😯
if street lights are for pedestrians then why are they so damn high? I'm sure the pavements would be better lit with 10-12 foot posts. If the light is better at low level then they won't have to use as much power.
how about more/better cats eyes?
What about turning off streetlights during the full moon?
But.. they'll need more of them as it'll spread less!
But.. they'll need more of them as it'll spread less!
nah - just dash to the next bright spot.
Maybe get all the kerbs whitewashed?
It's the amount of light that comes out of the sides of the streetlights round here that seems wasteful.
Why not have solar powered lamps, like a lot of the speed signs round here, im pootling along on a full sus, and it tells me to slow down its 30mph , and they dont work in the dark, for some reason.
So posibly not a goer.
Night vision goggles for everyone!
At the risk of sounding like a geek!!!
Total night switch off is just never going to happen. The street lighting is there for security and safe passage of traffic and pedestrian. Test cases recently have proved inadequate lighting has been a contributing factor, hence the general reluctance accross the industry to switch off.
In terms of motion sensors, again, you could only really use a PIR with a twin arc lamp or LED. Philips (iirc!) carried out tests recently, but it's not commonplace at the moment. It has the potential to be used really effectively in the right situation with LED though, but Again it comes down to safe passage. You couldn't use it with current SOX lamps, sodium or metal halide because of the warm up / Cool down time. So it'd take 20 mins for the lamp to cycle and sufficiently cool before it would restrike. You could techincally force the lamp to hot restrike, but ultimately you'd be damaging the lamp and you'd get way more premature failures, which would in turn increase your maintaince bill, so it's a bit pointless.
Engineers still use SOX because it's still a very effiecient light source and it's relatively cheap. Typically they are 70w - 250w, but by the time you've factored in ballast loses, they will be running at 100 - 300w and colour rendering is poor. LED in street lighting are coming online now in the UK and are more prominent, the stop gap has been Cosmo lamps, but with LED the lanterns run at a true wattage, and if dimming is used it is linear, so if you dim the output, you reduce the power. Because they are white light too, it's also permissible to drop a lighting classification generally, so lower wattages can be used. Los Angeles have total commitment to LED
Birmingham is PFI, so they are going though the first 5 years stock replacement programme, hence why columns are being changed too if they are non compliment. All columns have loading criteria though, so they can only carry certain weight & wind area of lanterns depending on the duty of the column (light / medium / heavy). LED re generally heavier than current road lanterns due to the heat sink required on the lantern, so this could be the result of columns being changed too.
Willard - sounds like the lamp or gear is cycling, call the local authority, it's generally a quick fix.
I feel like I have learned something from this thread, esp the last post.
Maybe get all the kerbs whitewashed?
I think there was a quite extensive kerb painting test programme in Northern Ireland for some years. IIRC, there was no consensus on which paint colours test was the most retroreflective (blue, green, white, orange, red) and consequently a number of the kerbs were repainted a number of times by community groups before it was abandoned in most areas.
I think all streetlights should be turned off during the hours of darkness. We would then be able to see where we are by the light of the milky way.
If its really cloudy lights could be optionally turned on by clicking our fingers or whistling a popular tune
I can save a considerable amount of energy by setting my bike lights to 'flash'.
So if we can't turn 'em off altogether, why not have flashing LED streetlights?
🙂
I think there was a quite extensive kerb painting test programme in Northern Ireland for some years. IIRC, there was no consensus on which paint colours test was the most retroreflective (blue, green, white, orange, red) and consequently a number of the kerbs were repainted a number of times by community groups before it was abandoned in most areas.
It is likely that the addition of flags to many of the lamp posts in those areas under test caused problems with the trials. As they were non-standard design (at least two different types were identified) and often caused a shadow from the street lamps, the true reflection level of the kerb stones was never ascertained under uniform test conditions.
Great, but you'd need to find the dosh for millions of them.
It pays for itself through the electricity savings.
On the motorways they are generally there to improve visibility at night time, particularly around junctions where accidents are more likely to occur.
In the North West we have been experimenting with midnight - 5am switch off on the quiter bits of the network (eg M6 J27 - 31), and in some cases, where schemes are being carried out, a number of lighting columns now deemed to be not required are being removed.
However on busier sections and complex junctions lights are likely to stay on safety grounds.
Why not mount a small light on the front of each car, which could be turned on by the driver when it gets dark?
This would illuminate all the roads the car needs to travel along, and only when it is in use. Much less waste. Might also make it easier for other people to spot the car at night.
Historic Park Becomes a Symbol of Sustainability With LEDtronics LED | LEDinside – LED, LED Lighting, LED Price Trends, Global LED News and Market Research
http://www.ledinside.com/news/2012/8/historic_park_ledtronics_led_20120820
My local is in a village with no street lights. Walking back to the car is fun as there are raised kerbs with grass dotted around. A good flashlight is essential!
Re: motorways; I can't understand why long stretches out of cities are illuminated, like the M4 west. There are those who argue that switching off the lights will make it more dangerous; so driving from a fully lit section onto a dark section, isn't dangerous, but driving from a lit city onto an unlit motorway is? I thought that was what those funny lights on the front of cars and bikes were for, to illuminate the dark bits, but it seems I was hopelessly wrong. 🙄