Street Lighting
The best way to cut back on National grid usage is for power companies to switch off every second street light on Sundays - Thursday nights between 11pm and 0700 am thru the winter and every night in the summer. There is no risk to trafic safety and crime isnt affected either. This can be done electronicly in the same way they can control hot water heaters by way of a ripple control. Once the system is in place, it will automatically save power for ever far more than switching off my mobile phone charger.
What makes me mad is the waste of power when street lights are left on during the day. This is the responsibility of the power company as they are supposed to have sensor switches or something to turn them off. And we ratepayers are paying for this wasted power!!
and road safety wont be compromised?
besides, the council is responsible for making those decisions and will question whether they'll be liable if road accidents do happen due to bad lighting.
You only need to drive around cities like Auckland, Hamilton or Lower Hutt in Wellington ( even the main street of Tokaroa ) to see the amount of light-spill to places that it just isnt required. You can see the light from Hamilton 80km's away. There simply is too much light anyway. My sugestion on times when half of the lights be turned off are times when there is almost no-one around any way, naturally the Council can workout where they need to have all lights on to provide safe driving and a secure environment. Cars have great headlighhts nowdays so safety shouldnt be an issue.
We're talking about the amount of light on the road, not the light going where it doesn't need to go. Are you suggesting that turning off half the lights will cause all the light that once went up into the sky to magically turn around and hit the road!? Enough with the strawman arguments.
Also, just because your car has great headlights doesn't mean the 10+ year old cars on the road do too. The council is responsible for protecting the lowest common denominator...
One idea that might actually make some sense is to improve the 'lampshades' (for want of a better term) to better direct the light at the road. Only then might we be able to fit dimmer bulbs.
Yah, light travels every where even when it is reflected on to the roads, it is actually re-reflected in all directions there is nothing magical about that. Im not sure what your point is with " strawman" comments. All cars have good enough lights to drive saftely in 50km zones with every second street light off during the latter hours when there is so few cars on the road. This type of system is in common use overseas in countries such as Denmark which is one of the most safety awear places in the world.
Show me the report that says crime won't be affected.