Essex council is pulling the plug on its practice of keeping street lighting on all night long to help reduce light pollution and to conserve energy.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/5179610.stm
Will motorway lights be switched off in the wee small hours?
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I see crime figures soaring.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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" I see crime figures soaring."
I was burgled overnight a few weeks ago. As there is never a policeman about to see anything untoward, I conclude that the light outside my gate served only to light up the window which was forced, to the benefit of the miscreant's operations.
Nobody and no loot found.
At least it was a professional job, so no damage to the car and minimal to the house.
They can switch the light off as far as I am concerned.
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I have a street light right outside my house. The only time in 47 years' occupancy we've had any criminal activity, the street light enabled my other half after being woken up to spot what was going on (as well as recognise the perpetrator); within 10 minutes he had been arrested, taken to the local police station and later suitably charged.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Not sure about the street lighting idea: I suppose there might be areas where this could be a workable idea in some locations. A better place to start, in my view, would be to turn off unnecessary traffic lights outside peak hours - starting with all traffic lights on roundabouts ... That would have the additional benefit of saving fuel wasted, and thus CO2 emissions, caused by bringing traffic to a halt whilst waiting for non-existent traffic to come round the roundabout...
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Blimey... that flies in the face of "stick to well lit areas while walking alone at night" advice, doesn't it. Brave council who put the environment before the safety of it's tax payers.
How about turning off those sill signs that tell you to take a break, how far it is to the next junction or that there's congestion, when the road is completely clear.
On the other hand, how much electric does street furniture really use? Surely there's a whole load of things to tackle before you go there.
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Street lights are unmetered - I guess their usage is estimated ie no of bulbs (wattage) multiplied by running time
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Motorway lights need to go. Pretty much the entire length of the M5 is lit between Worcester and Birmingham and I cannot see ANY need for it at all.
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On a road near me in Bucks, there is a 60 mph unlit road with a cluster of about 10 steet lights marking out a junction that turns onto this NSL road (In fact one of the only clear indications of where it is at night).
Council has put up a sign saying that they are going to turn off steet lights experimentally there to conserve energy.
May be interesting to see accident statistics at night :-( .
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The nights should be reclaimed, there are hardly any factories working at night there used to be. Why should night be thought of as a poorly-lit version of day? If it was pitch black, maybe people would go to bed instead of all this other nonsense such as going to clubs all night or hanging about.
Most street lamps stay on far too long, they go off when it's much lighter than it was when they came on, this is a deficiency in the design of the zodions. They would be better on master timeswitches that are preset to adjust to the changes in lighting up time.
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Holiday in France last month - Salies de Bearne.
Shared the drive with the landlord who didn't like leaving his car on the road at night because the street lights went off at 11:30!
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Totally disagree I'm afraid. I much prefer driving on the M1 in West Yorkshire where lights are provided as opposed to South Yorkshire where they aren't. On a wet winter night the lighting on the M62 is useful for seeing large areas of surface water well before you get there.
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Why not have street lights that only come on if there is anyone there, like security lights?
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Wasn't the original argument for road lighting that there needed to be some load overnight for the generating plant which couldn't be shutdown for relatively short periods of time?
(I have a feeling that some of the very large sets _can't_ be stopped completely as the thing will be damaged by it's own weight when static)
Or do we export power these days far enough for it to be used in a meaningful way in the wee small hours.. and therefore not _need_ to use road lighting.
I think we should be told :)
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anybody who used to drive on the m62 in the 70"s when it was pitch dark and we had 7 inch candles for seeing with on the front of our cars welcomed proper motorway street lighting with very open arms,
however,
we had new street lights on our lane last year ish and unfortunately they are so good you cant see the stars anymore if the wife and i (queeny bit) wish to take a midnight romantic stroll,
the answer?
ask neighbour hoods whether they want street lights left on or not,
obviously ,
the council workers with the dangly badge with their official mug on and their approved A4 clipboards shouldnt ask for answers off hoodies/tramps or thieves as the survey could be wrong.(i wonder if they get a pencil sharpening allowance as well as mileage allowance?)
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I think it makes sense to leave them on, the power stations need something to do overnight, that's the sole reason that the Economy 7 heating system was developed in the UK. Econ 7 is certainly not better than having electric oil filled radiators, it's only advantage is that it uses up some of the excess load overnight (hence making it cheaper, think of it the same way as you would a reduced price item in the supermarkets when it's about to expire!), surely switching the lamps off will make this wasted load problem worse?
If I manage to find an official answer at work I will post it up.
Blue
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The two 'load overnight' answers are really interesting. I didn't know that at all!
Makes sense though.
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Some points:
The councils need to realign ALL their street lights. Any streetlight that is polluting the skies etc is incorrectly aligned. I actually think that they have a duty to do this but would find it too expensive. When you fly over the country at night and see all those street lights then the energy is being wasted and there is no need what so ever to shine into the sky.
Why do we have to have those dreadful orange bulbs? I far prefer the (dimmer) white ones that French towns have. And why in the middle of the country do people accept or insist on having a street light outside their house.
I believe that it is not really feasable to store power generated by power stations (but might be wrong). If there were no street lights what would you do with the power? You can't exactly turn down power stations off and on can you?
Personally i would like the following to happen:
a) street lights correctly aligned (and especially the one outside my bedroom window)
b) getting rid of hideous orange bulbs
c) getting rid of a lot of unnecessary lights
d) using the power saved from street lights to run a desalination plant which I am sure you can turn off and on more easily than a power station (although Ken said no to desalination plant for London)
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I hate the colour that the sodium (orange) lights turn the sky. (I live not far from the M25 and the sky is always a murky orange except on the clearest nights)
They replaced all the mercury (white) lights years ago.
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I'd like to see all those shops in town centres which leave their lights blazing all night save a bit of power by turning them off.
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d) using the power saved from street lights to run a desalination plant which Iam sure you can turn off and on more easily than a power station (although Ken said no to desalination plant for London)
You could always buy our brand new scottish water, we have loads of it. I come from the south east of the UK and have suffered the well used water since. (see car wash thread).
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i use economy7 heating but you can get caught out if you put your heating on at night and the next day it turns mild, its like living in an oven plus the opposite can happen and you end up living in a fridge until the next night/day when you have "banked" some heat as it were
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REF - Power station load.
Although not a marine engineer I know from experience that in a steam turbine ship (similar plant to a power station) the engine room will ask to "turn main engines" if you order them to stop when they are hot, for more than a few minutes, as the turbines will sag.
Edited by Old Navy on 08/11/2007 at 11:28
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Motorway lights need to go.
Me, I'd agree with that, but there's an argument going on at the moment to light more of the M61 around Bolton as in the past 5 years, two people have been killed on the unlit section
both young males WALKING across a dark motorway as a short cut home, at least one of them on the way home from the pub
I don't think that lighting is the major factor in that equation
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"The council said it was "clearly appropriate" for all night lighting to remain in certain limited areas.
(snip)
Essex Police said in a statement: "The council has given a clear undertaking to consult with police on a case-by-case basis as to whether switching off lights will have an impact on crime and disorder or on road policing and road safety."
Looks like a good idea, even if only from the point of view of reducing waste.
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"to help reduce light pollution and to conserve energy."
Pah! This is the same as the reusing hotel towels thing to "save the environment". It's being done to save money.
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Street lights were obviously turned off during the war without detriment to the power stations. Crime did increase I believe.
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"Cliff Pope-Why not have street lights that only come on if there is anyone there, like security lights?"
I agree, but this wouldn't work with the current ones which take a while to warm up and need to cool right down before a restrike. Maybe LEDs will improve to the extent where they are a viable replacement.
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Taking things at a slight tangent - investing in wind power is a total nonsense, as it saves very little generating capacity - the power stations have to built, and on stand-by for when the wind stops. Even tidal energy is not consistent - neap tides are far lower than springs.
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Why stop there? Why not switch them off permanently. And we could all switch off our central heating and home lights at well. Combine this with leaving ours cars at home and the environment will be saved! Hurray! Mankind lives on...
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My brothers two kids (3,5) live in big city (Bristol), love it when they come to see me! just can't get them to come in at tea-time, they are enthralled looking at the Stars! something they never see at home due to light pollution, makes me wonder sometimes how many other kids have never seen them!
Billy
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Stars! something they never see at home due to light pollution makes me wonder sometimes how many other kids have never seen them!
I was out drinking with some blokes in a rural area. Outside, one of them fell over flat on his back on the verge, & we couldn't get him up for about 10 minutes, he was oohing and arring away, having some sort of degree involving astronomy, but never having seen stars that clearly.
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There was an item in the Book Of Heroic Failures about an experiment with several weeks of no street lighting in a village back in the 70's.
Can't remember the exact figures, but the council saved something like £30 worth of electricity, but the electric board charged them £35 to turn the lights off and on. It cost them £5 to spend several weeks in the dark!
Seriously, I'd like the street lights off so I could actually see the stars as they are meant to be seen, but I can see from a public safety point of view it could be a problem.
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i can see the point of turning off the lights in the countryside and remote places but a very bad idea in town. if you want to see the stars then it's only a few miles to the edge of most towns where it's dark already
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The article refers to the switch off being selective.
I'd like fewer lights on in low density housing areas for reasons of eco savings and light pollution
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Why risk road safety and security when supermarkets could take out even every third tube and make an instant drastic cut in consumption?
While I think about it, why is it that no-one talks about the fact that flat panel TVs often use much more power than old fashioned CRT sets?
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Plasmas do but I;m not sure if the latest LCD ones do, if they're efficient enough to run on battery in my laptop I'd imagine they can't be that bad.
Blue
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LCD flat panels are actually more efficient by area. Problem is, mean size has increased massively - 32" is now the norm, rather than at max (?) 25" previously. Also, while a CRT will normally use less power when displaying a black screen, an LCD is running at full power all the time it's on.
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There was a story going around that if Google were to change their homepage to be black instead of white it would save x amount of CO2. Of course the major flaw in the arguement is that most computers use LCD screens these days. In fact can you still buy a CRT monitor anymore?
Edited by moonshine {P} on 08/11/2007 at 18:25
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I have just driven past T5 LHR. The whole of the vast multilevel car park ( motoring link)appeared to be illuminated. There were some cars parked in it but I struggle to believe they were checking things out at 8pm.
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I often think it would be possible to increase the spread from this kind of lighting by the use of reflectors above the light ,an increase in pole height maybe would help and allow less lights with no loss of vision.
when using an alternative source of light during a power cut ,for example a candelabra it helps greatly to place it in front of a mirror so no reason why not on a bigger scale
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Stockport MBC suggested a slight variation on Essex's scheme a year or so ago. The idea was to turn off every other lamp, thereby saving 50% of the electricity. I'm all for it, as the current lights are bright enough to read by.
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are you a hobo then AlastairW? :-) smiley smiley smiley
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My GF lives in one of the pilot towns - Maldon in Essex. They have picked quiet towns as a pilot.
Local feeling isn't positive. The timers seem quite inacurate - for a school trip they had to have the class at school by 06:00 - but the lights that were due to be on by 05:00 weren't. And it wasn't GMT/BST issues.
And it is all roads. Even the local "main" roads are off. What are local feeder thoughfares are off. The you get to smaller roads. It is interesting driving down residental streets with no lighting with random parked cars (see later). The pedestrians carry torches but still dress in black. I try to use Main Beam if I'm not either driving towards someone or pointing at someones bungalow. Otherwise wildlife seems not to understand the increased risk.
There have been a couple of serious crimes when normally this is a quiet little town. The local paper report that post "lights out" some areas find it very intimidating as the local youth come home.
Personally as my GF's house has a street light right outside I can't find it an unstatistical fact that I'm on my third set of dust caps since the change.
On a motoring law front (Learned friends please).: -
(1) Isn't there a dispensation about parking without lights in streetlight areas in certain circumstances. You could park legitimately but then when the lights go out.....
(2) Speed limits. In this area lots of the streetlighting is mounted on telegraph poles shared with other services. With the lights off how is the 30 limit denoted without repeaters?
Thanks,
Simon
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Lets just have a 55mph national speed limit!
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(2) Speed limits. In this area lots of the streetlighting is mounted on telegraph poles shared with other services. With the lights off how is the 30 limit denoted without repeaters?
They've actually taken them out of the ground? :-o ;-)
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No - they are telegraph poles that you can see through trees. Without the lights on especially with dip beam it can be hard to see the light fittings when the lights are out. With the differing styles of light you might not recognise them as such.
Simon
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