Street lighting switch off

Grandslammer

Grandslammer

Suspended / Banned
Messages
4,435
Name
Martyn
Edit My Images
Yes
Is this phenomenon happening nationwide ?
Local council have decided to do this in an attempt to save some money but personally I'm not in favour of it
...and their methods of doing so leave a lot to be desired
I would have thought that the one on,one off approach might save some pennies,while still giving some decent coverage but it's more like one or two on,then four or five off
Then there's the streetlamps that are switched off but the Christmas illumination under it still on :cuckoo:
While the law abiding citizen might now think twice about taking an evening stroll,the opportunist thief must be wiping their hands with glee,as are the irresponsible dog owners :suspect:
 
they might be able to switch altenate ones on and off with out hard wiring
 
I remember when I was a kid (I'm 42) that all side street lighting were timed to turn themselves off at 11 pm and then back on at 4 am every night. Only major main road "sodum" type lights were left on. That was when night time was really night time when my house got plunged into total darkness, even though I've always lived in a built up area!
Nowadays all modern street lighting are fitted with light-sensitive sensors (that's that little lump on top of the lamp) which tells the lamps to turn themselves on whenever it gets dark, and obviously off when it starts to get lighter. That's why all street lamps stay on all night and as a result I could actually read a book during the night time with all indoors lights turned off!
As for the pros and cons with turning street lighting off, yes, there is driver safety and crime will probably increase as intruders cannot be easily spotted lurking about in the dark.
But there's the obvious benefit of less energy being used, and I would actually like to be able to see a starry skyscape once again, complete with the milky way, like I used to be able to!
 
Last edited:
Bring it on :D There's a wonderful sky up there .... Turn the lights off and keep them off ... as far as crime is concerned? where is the evidence? most little scroats are more frightened of the dark than some angry home owner ;)
 
Splog said:
Bring it on :D There's a wonderful sky up there .... Turn the lights off and keep them off ... as far as crime is concerned? where is the evidence? most little scroats are more frightened of the dark than some angry home owner ;)
Click to expand...

Most little scroats don't care if they get seen.
 
I read somewhere that lights on a dual carriage way were turned off on a high accident stretch and accident rate went down due to drivers being more cautious with thier speed. Makes sense to a cetrain degree. In preactice not so sure.
 
Grandslammer said:
Local council have decided to do this in an attempt to save some money but personally I'm not in favour of it
Click to expand...

Many years ago, when I used to work for one of the electricity companies, I had to manually calculate the street lighting invoices, no computers in them days :nuts:

Street lighting was a huge cost then (£millions per annum for some of the councils) so it must be even more significant now when you consider the increased level of lighting and increase in energy costs.

Another reason why they'll be switching them off is to reduce Carbon emmissions. Next year they'll have to start buying Carbon allowances based on usage. Every energy saving they make will help them reduce emissions and reduce the extra cost which will be incurred.

It's got to be a difficult decision for them, including the public perception of lower lighting=higher crime, but overall they probably don't have much choice financially. Personally I'd probably rather they did this than cut services in other areas, which they may have to do anyway.
 
Turn em all off, I say, bring back night time:clap:

I'd love to see the statistics, that prove beyond doubt, that street lights make safer neighbour hoods. The only trouble in my road is caused by the kids hanging out around the street lamp, because they're afraid of the dark !
 
Last edited:
The majority of street lights in the area around here go off at midnight and come back on about 5 am (I think.. I'm not sure, I've not managed to either get up then, or stay up that late). There is sufficient light to be able to see plenty well in the unlit areas.

And as Steve said earlier, it makes an enormous difference to the state of the sky, and it's full of wonders and jewels that just can't be seen otherwise... Turn it off..

As for the accident rates... surely there's more of an issue with the rapid changes from dark to brightly lit than there is from having most lights off?
 
No street light has ever done anything for me !!!

I wouldn't miss em !
 
Ian D J said:
I remember when I was a kid (I'm 42) that all side street lighting were timed to turn themselves off at 11 pm and then back on at 4 am every night. Only major main road "sodum" type lights were left on. That was when night time was really night time when my house got plunged into total darkness, even though I've always lived in a built up area!
Click to expand...

And cars parked on the road had to have sidelights on all night. Remember the little clip-on sidelights that hooked on over a door window? I believe the law is still current about having to park facing the correct direction, not within a specific distance from junctions, and with sidelights on roads above a 30mph limit, but the police seem to have forgotten about these.
 
our town have removed all sodium lights, replaced with new white lites & at night drop power to 40%
 
Kerioak said:
Street Light? None around here we all have to use torches
Click to expand...

I'd give anything for a torch, my candles got about 2 hours "burn time" left.

After that it'll be a 200 mile round trip by horse to get a new candle.

Maybe I'll get 4 candles so I have some spare !

"4 candles"

;)
 
This is a good thing to be honest. I love the darkness! Means we'll be able to see the night sky again! I live in the centre of town but my road (small private road) has no lights so when you're down the end of it you can see the sky really nicely. Also, this would DECREASE crime if anything. My road is VERY dark at night (I'll take a pic tonight!) and as a result no chavs ever really go down it at night (my dad left his car door open overnight once. On a lit street I reckon the car would have been gone in the morning) and we never get trick or treaters on haloween which is nice. As someone else said, most of the little scrotes are scared of the dark :p
 
There's one round here that's been on 24 hours a day as long as I can remember, at least 15 years probably much longer :shrug:
 
The main reason I started this thread was because 'my' road has been plunged into total darkness for a week now,(apparently some sort of section fault which is proving difficult to locate it seems)
....and although I'm all for a little celestial navigation and I have Pitch Black in my DVD collection :p,I'm all for the return of some ' light relief '
Spare a thought also for those elderly and/or disabled residents who are not blessed with night 20/20 vision
All that's missing now is an ARP warden :D
 
What are streetlights :shrug: and don't you lot eat carrots:D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top