Those street lights that glow orange in Britain, am I in creepy B movie?

Hmmm. I wonder if it has to do with light pollution. They have really orange street lights in Tuscon, Arizona, in order to cut light pollution so the observatory there can operate better. I don’t know a whole lot about it, but know that’s why the Exit signs in a theater are usually red — because it doesn’t cut into the darkness of the theater. Maybe orange is a compromise between needing light and causing light pollution? Great point to ponder, Peacefulyorkshire.

I actually heard (on Radio 1, I think) that some places are switching to pink-ish coloured lights that supposedly draw attention to one’s spots. This is specifically to deter ASBOs from wanting to congregate in those areas.

Interesting.

And I also dislike the orange lights. Namely the one that beans right into my bedroom window at 3am when I wake from a sound sleep.

Wow pink street lights that highlight zits. I can’t believe that is how tax money is being spent…!!
And that decision is a city council assuming that asbos have a high number of pimples anyway to be worried enough about these pink lights. Well, more so than a “more affluent” citizen. What a weird decision!

It reminds me of places in the USA blaring classical music so that youth wouldn’t congregate there either. Imagine that pink lights and classical music in combination…wow.

Hi there,

Thanks for linking my Streetlights blog. Hardly a blog in the proper sense, as updates are so few and far between. Will reciprocate the link.

Did visit Mayfair in London recently though and was delighted to see street after street lit in white. Naturally I didn’t have the super streetlight camera with me, so no new post on that.

On the subject of light-pollution:

There is a case for using low-pressure sodium [deep orange colour] near observatories, as the monochromatic orange – a very narrow band of light – is easy for astronomers to filter out. I’ve also heard that migrating sea-turtles can be confused by wide-spectrum lighting.

But, for the majority of locations, orange lighting is inappropriate. Because our night-time vision favours blues and greens, orange sodium lighting needs to be very much brighter than white lighting in order to achieve the same levels of useful illumination. Because of this overlighting, we are cursed with the ugly urbanising skyglow effect.

My post Roads to Hell gives a fairly concise account of the arguments.

Be interested to know whereabouts in the US you come from.

Best wishes,

BB

The street lights near us only work about half the time. Thank goodness it is lighter in the evenings now!

I agree something about the orange has a very 70′s feel. I’ll be heading south for a few days so I’ll report back on the state of street lights down there!

Whatever colo(u)r makes the drunk Brits none-violent… that’s the one they should switch it to.

I always thought the color had to do with less electricity being used in order to save on the electric bill. In Texas, the lights went orange all of a sudden about 15 years ago.

I read a news article recently about a town in Germany that is so environmentally friendly, that they don’t use street lights except on the main roads. If you want to go out on foot after dark, you text a number with special street codes, and then the lights on those streets automatically come on.

Sounds great, but what if you want to take a detour at the last minute? And to be honest, what a nuisance, if you just want to walk to a friend’s house.

I agree about the horrible orange glow. Why on earth…?

Just call me your own little researcher as I have done some BBC investigating on the pink lights and spots.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/7963347.stm

Rachel, I was going to say the exact same thing! I miss Tucson’s orange glow though, and the saguaros…

I’d heard that it was linked back to WWII and that it was harder for bomb-carrying aircraft to see populated areas from the air if they were lit with orange lights.

Who knows? I agree that they’re creepy, though…

A rigorous black-out was imposed in the UK during WWII. No street lights of any color would have been on, so none would have been visible by enemy airplanes. What you heard is therefore not correct.

Savannah – do you know why they would’ve chosen orange tho? Can you shed any light? Sorry… BAD pun

“Savannah – do you know why they would’ve chosen orange tho?”

I’m sorry to have been so long in replying to this.

The orange light is produced by sodium vapor elements.

It has the following properties:

1. It costs less; there is a smaller charge to the local tax payer
2. It contributes less to carbon emission and greenhouse effect
3. It produces less light pollution
4. It is less glaring to nighttime vehicle drivers; causes less night blindness.

Whether you see these as advantages depends on where you stand on the continuum between personal selfshness, on the one hand, and comprehensive public benefit, on the other.

All those reasons sound good to me…

but it doesn’t stop the fact that it can be creepy if you’re walking alone at night.

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