In order to save costs, a number of county governments are turning some street lights off at night – the Highways Agency is also cutting lighting on some motorways in the small hours.
I have often wondered why so many lights are left on – especially between one and five in the morning. Pedestrians and motorists require different types of lighting. Lighting just for pedestrians is cheaper. If organisations responsible for lighting, as part of their planned maintenance and replacement programmes devised lighting that catered specially for driving and lighting that was specially for walking separately then they would be able to turn off the lights for drivers but keep on the lower powered lights for pedestrians. Naturally, this would generally only apply to main roads.
More to the point, I am puzzled why so many traffic lights are left on into the night. Indeed why are so many left on during the day? For example, one string of traffic lights comes to mind. Sometimes I drive down a suburban main road with three business parks accessing it. Each junction is controlled by lights. On Sundays next to no-one uses these business parks yet the lights merrily change as if it is home time for all the offices and factories. Consequently, one can stop at the first red light, wait for no-one to come out, get to the second set of lights at red, wait for no-one to come out and, if one is very unlucky, hit red at the third set of lights. To do this at two o’clock in the morning is very annoying.
I am not suggesting all traffic lights are turned off each night but, in my view, the default position for traffic lights should be that they turned off. The same applies to all the lights on pedestrian crossings. They should only come on when they are needed. Some traffic lights would be on all the time but most lights would be off at some point.
Other countries manage to do this so why can’t we? – It would give us a better view of the night sky, save energy and make traffic move more smoothly.
0 Comments View now