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Britain Shuts Off 750,000 Streetlights With No Impact On Crime Or Crashes
Flash Modin writes: English cities are hard up for cash as the national government dolls out cuts. And in response, the country's councils — local governing bodies — have slashed costs by turning off an estimated 750,000 streetlights. Fans of the night sky and reduced energy usage are happy, but the move has also sparked a national debate. The Automobile Association claims six people have died as a direct result of dimming the lights. But a new study released Wednesday looked at 14 years of data from 63 local authorities across England and Wales and found that residents' chances of being attacked, robbed, or struck by a car were no worse on the darker streets.
"dolls out cuts" Verb dole (third-person singular simple present doles, present participle doling, simple past and past participle doled) To distribute in small amounts; to share out small portions of a meager resource. back to school for you
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
And cars tend to have headlights.
I remember a study from the 90's that showed eliminating lights around schools at night actually reduced the number of break-ins at those schools. The reasoning was that a) most people are afraid of the dark and b) a ne'er-do-well would need a flashlight, which would be easy to spot in the darkness.
As an american, Its good to see the brits following in our footsteps. We started shutting off street lights here in places like Stockton California and Detroit Michigan quite some time ago. The impact on reported crime is minimal, as we've also been shutting off funding to most of the police departments. Crash statistics, surprisingly, remain unchanged as well. most cars in these locations dont run, and even if they did there arent any jobs to drive to.
Our next bold experiments are shutting off water in California and shutting off education in Wisconsin.
Good people go to bed earlier.
You still use torches? Get with the times, use a flashlight, you savage :)
I see street lights as a waste of money.
Not just a waste of money. Most of them are a waste of fuel, serve no meaningful social purpose, create needless light pollution as well as emissions and waste resources in their creation and installation. We could eliminate vast numbers of street lights in all likelihood with no adverse effect at all while saving a lot of money and reducing pollution. I'm always astonished when I fly over a city at night how many empty parking lots, unoccupied buildings, unused streets and other things we pointlessly and wastefully light up.
Yeah the six people probably died from Vitamin D deficiency, in England we don't get enough sun light and street lamps were installed to combat rickets. Looks like night time will be as gloomy as the day in England now, sigh.
The most dangerous drug
I'm a fan of getting rid of streetlights but...
There is one way in which I can see they make things definitely less safe, and that is clearly indicating where the edges of the roads are in really bad weather - in a driving snow or rainstorm, there have been times I've been really happy to have the lights on other sides confirming where the road was, because it was not possible to see that clearly through the windshield.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I thought the old school smiley at the end of the sentence was a dead give away. But young kids nowadays have Unicode smiley's to work with.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Light use electricity. Producing electricity creates pollution. Pollution is responsible for a lot of death. Six people died because of turning off some lights. How many did not die because of reduced pollution?
This is indeed good news for amateur astronomers. Unfortunately, they are among the only people who will actually benefit or want to go out at night under these conditions.
My wife and sister, in contrast, are now uncomfortable about things like getting a late train home and then walking back from the station in pitch black conditions, to the point where if they can't make arrangements for more secure travel either end of a journey then they will sometimes not go out at all. And yes, before anyone asks, there have actually been relevant crimes recorded in the relevant areas, so their concerns do have have some justification. There is a reason that police and public safety advisors have long recommended walking home along well-lit streets instead of dark paths late at night.
While we're at it, several sources have already highlighted other data, up to and including coroners' reports directly attributing actual deaths in road traffic collisions to reduced lighting, that conflict with the claims here of no harm being done. Those claims are also in conflict with more general evidence about how to design homes and wider areas to minimise the ability for criminals to approach targets undetected and the reduced crime rates that result.
In short, this seems to be based on one selective result, published in a relatively obscure journal and from a relatively unknown source that has some unspecified link to UCL for credibility, that directly contradicts established policing policy, public safety policy, road safety policy, architectural principles, common sense, and hard evidence. But yay for astronomers though, I guess.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
white lines would fix that
In snow?
It irritates me when it's hard to tell between the grey pavement and the grey road
With enough rain, there is no grey, no brown. Just water.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley