Dimming street lights?

[ARWadsworth]

Bet you cannot guess who always parks on a pavement facing the wrong way most nights?

[Andy Burns]

Yeah my next door neighbour's a sparky too ... AND he usually wakes me up when arrives back from night shifts at about 04:20 :-)

[<me9]

For once I agree with Dennis.

[<me9]

Can we send you a few thousand? We've far too many here, probably causing the glow in your sky to the south east.

[<me9]

They replaced ours with similar a couple of years ago. Nice metal halide ones. Pity they used the wrong (new) poles, and didn't mount the lights horizontally so some do shine into bedroom windows, others have swung in the gales to point in the wrong direction and others have had the bulbs replaced by sodium ones untuned to the optics.

So much for the cheapest privatised quote for maintaining the streetlights!

[ARWadsworth]

They must be cheap to run, but not cheap to install. The odd thing is it was the only LED street light there. The rest were discharge lamps (and new ones as they stood next to the old concrete streetlamps)

[Nightjar]

>>>>> Using a dimmer switch on your lights at home doesn't save very much in

I wonder if they have checked whether that invalidates 30mph speed limits without repeater signs? Lighting can hardly count as being provided at the necessary minimum distances if the lights are intentionally turned off by the Council.

Colin Bignell

[JNugent]

You are a cyclist AICMFP.

[Graham.]

Does "modern" mean "upmarket German" in this context?

[Graham.]

the only LED street light there. The rest were

Was the light from it steady or strobed?

[Andy Burns]

I suspect so, I've never had a car with bi-xenons before, but I treated myself this time and *boy* do everyone else's lights look dingy and orange now.

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , Mark writes

My local council is running a trial of the dimming devices in the area I live in, approximately 3 miles sq. The lights only dim between 10pm and

7am. It is noticeable, but not as bad as the claimed 50% savings suggest.

I did notice, however, that following the fitting of the control gear a very large proportion (perhaps approaching 50%) of lights failed.

I have a feeling that the cost of installation and maintenance is going to outweigh the savings.

[dennis]

It doesn't invalidate it during the day when the lights are also switched off.

[The Medway Handyman]

I'm saying nothing :-)

[Nightjar]

If the street lighting is provided in accordance with section 82 of Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, switching it off during the day or even having the odd lamp that fails, does not invalidate the speed limit. However, I think it could be argued that intentionally switching off every third lamp is not providing a system of lighting by means of street lights placed not more than 200 yards (185m in Scotland) apart, as required by the Act, assuming the lamps are more than 100 yards apart.

There have been plenty of cases where 30mph limits have been declared invalid because of mistakes in the street lighting, including one where it was successfully argued that the lighting was not provided for the street, but for the pedestrian walkway alongside it.

Colin Bignell

[Bill]

In message , Mike Tomlinson writes

Probably a different department, as long as they can say they have saved

50% on the running costs then they can conveniently ignore all the others. >

[Terry Casey]

>

I remember that happening round here during one fuel crisis or another - miners' strike? Power worksrs' strike? Oil price hike? Combination of two or more? Can't remember, but crime rates shot up and there was a dramatic swing in the composition of the local coucil at the next election ...

(Greater London - one vote for all every three years, rather than the vote for a third of them every year, as happens in (most) other places ...)

[dennis]

Maybe that was the striking workers having nothing to do?

[Steve Walker]

That's an advantage for me. Before the smoking ban, every time a group of us went out, there'd be one or two that smoked and if we didn't stay in the smoking area, we'd just have a winging smoker all night. End result, we all suffered the smoke and went home with sore eyes and throat (it wasn't good for my combination of asthma and pulmonary sarcoidosis either) and stinking clothes and hair.

Before you ask, no the ban has not increased how often I go out, but that's simply because we've got kids of 7, 5 and 3 now, so nights out are a very, very rare luxury!

Yes, I do understand the problem of just wanting to nip to the pub to meet up with people or for a drink with your SO.

Is there a group of you that could go out together each week, so you can all take turns at being the deignated driver? We used to do that, as our group had spread too far apart to do it any other way - since then two have moved back into the area, one has moved too far away to meet up more than a couple of times a year and one has emigrated to Australia!

I do remember a story some years ago of a bunch of farmers that used to drive to the pub, drink during the evening and then drive home, but the police could do nothing because they were going home via each others fields and never on a public road :)

Public sector jobs aren't that good, my wife has one - just. She was told in November after training some students, "thanks for training your replacements." What is really angering her is that they are basing any redeployment or redundancy on her current banding, when they agreed that she was wrongly banded 2 years ago and had been for 2-1/2 years before that. They submitted the paperwork and then bounced it back and forth while management said they'd done their bit and HR said they hadn't. The new manager came in in November, told her he would support her banding appeal and then two hours later told her she was under threat of redundancy. Senior management then turned her banding appeal down on the grounds that her job was under threat! The subsequent actions, bullying, ignoring of procedure and breaking of previous agreements seem designed to break my wife and make her simply resign due to the pressure. To add insult to injury, she was the most qualified and experienced in her team, the only one qualified for one of the duties of the posts and the only one in the clear after an investigation into working hours - prompted by a manager querying why she was seeing as many patients in

2-1/2 days as the others were seeing in 5, while also being the only one without any complaints against her and getting the best outcomes for her patients.

The culture of mismanagement and bullying seems to be endemic in the NHS ... I'm glad I don't work for it!

SteveW

[Dave Liquorice]

Teeside? That's 40 miles away and is by far the worst source of sky glow. If you know where to look and the conditions are right there is a small amount, just a blob on the horizon, from Carlisle.