Why street lights on all night?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Er, no , it isn't. That's where I do it!

Dogs have HUGELY better smell and fairly better ears. Eyes they don't use that much.

Our dog can smell a bitch on heat 3 miles away, and find her!

[The Natural Philosopher]

stick is useful there.

Blind people do a lot with sticks. Ask them.

[The Natural Philosopher]

yup. Cats have almost zero smell, better eyesight than dogs, and ears that can spot a mouse rustling at 50 yards.

[The Natural Philosopher]

And my point is that his is in fact the case with all driving anyway, night or day.

All you can do is play the percentages intelligently. I don't drive in very heavy wind,because about a person a year dies when a branch falls in front of them.

I don't speed in towns because the chances of something appearing suddenly are large.

I slow down where there are woods against the roads here, because its crawling with deer, and one or two people a year write cars off against them.

I leave 3 times the gap on the M25 that anyone else does, because there is nowhere to run and you need all the time you can get if the (quite likely) accident occurs.

But I am perfectly happy doing 130mh down an unlit autobahn in the middle of the night, because there is virtually zero probability there will be anything on it.

And, if I have to dip my lights, there is virtually zero chance hat the bit of road for the next mile that I could clearly see before I dipped them, has suddenly acquired an unlit sherman tank, and of course, even that won't fill the WHOLE road.

Oh, and most people will survive a high speed accident as long as they don't hit something very large, heavy and immovable.

30mph is only fatal to pedestrians these days: I came upon the result of a 120mph accident. Even the guys in the back who weren't wearing seat belts survived. Cut to shit by glass, and a couple of broken bones..but they made it, I heard from the police later.

OTOH the woman who drive off the road - probably at 40-50mph.. and vanished for 6 months, till someone spotted her Volvo at the bottom of a lake, didn't.

If you are going to have an accident, and one day it probably happens to everyone, try and pick a soft target to have it against..

[Andy Burns]

Surely you don't avoid all activities that kill one or more people per year?

[clumsy bastard]

I have found it so if its really dark.

[clumsy bastard]

so i have one hand up to stop branches hitting me, the other with a stick feeling for holes, you mentioning running I think?

[clumsy bastard]

no, normally we drive to be able to stop in half the distance we can see + allowance for the child behind car etc

One a year? I wouldn't worry about that.

yep.

or anywhere where something can leap out

or any motorway compared with the next to nothing many leave.

there is no "before you dipped them" in my scenario, who gets a chance to use main beam on our motorways?

[The Natural Philosopher]

you obviopusly do not drive at 2a.m.-4a.m...

[clumsy bastard]

I do, but my scenario was the more normal situation of drivers forced onto permanent dipped at 70+ and they cant see to stop and rely on chance.

[Jules]

No, but the A10 you mentioned is not one of those...

Re. motoryways, I suspect in the overwhelming majority of cases if there was an obstruction at night then people could see it and safely steer round it even if they couldn't come to a complete stop in time. Very few incidents result in a complete blockage of all lanes...

I have seen loose horses / cattle on motorways before though, and their unpredictable nature could cause issues I suppose - but those incidents were always in daylight, so somewhat irrelevant to the discussion :-)

Jules

[Jules]

That one seems not worth worrying about, statistically. Of course caution can be applied appropriately if driving in heavy wind...

Yep.

I think there's estimated to be one deer for every five people in this state - you quickly learn not to collect any on the front of your vehicle (and I've seen them come barelling out of the trees and straight over 4' high fences into the road many a time)

After dark you get used to looking out for the reflections in their eyes :-)

I think a lot of people miss that. Always devote part of your concentration to knowing where to ditch if the completely unexpected does happen. It's all about managing risk; anyone who thinks that 100% safe driving is possible is clearly nuts.

cheers

J.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No, and that was in 1976 or thereabouts at 3a.m. NOTHING on it.

And the stretch I used was devoid of turnings..

[Jules]

Well I'm not arguing that it was wrong (I've done the same in some situations) just pointing out that the hazards don't always lie in the road ahead and can sometimes appear in peripheral vision. As mentioned elsewere, is a risk thing, and 0% risk is a completely unrealistic goal anyway... collectively people get far too caught up thinking they can go about their daily lives without the chance of anything bad happening :(

[clumsy bastard]

Yes, I didnt take my first fastish car out at 4am on summer morning, reconnoitre a stretch of Mway and then blast back the other way at "70+". I mean you couldn't argue your speedo had 50% error, could you?

[nightjar]

I rather doubt that a commercial quality timer, capable of switching gas discharge lamps, would be anything like that cheap. I also don't think the quality of radio singal inside a steel lamp column would be that good, while an external aerial would result in complications of installation and extra cost.

However, assuming that the cost, including fitting, was only £5 more than the existing system, that would add nearly £3million to the capital cost of street lights in my County. I don't know the current tariffs, but street lights always used to get very favourable rates, because they operated mostly through the late night and early morning periods, when any load on the system was welcome. If they changed to evening only, I would expect a higher tariff, which would reduce any savings achieved.

Colin Bignell

[Jules]

Heh - no comment :-)

[Rod]

I was rather assuming that the timer mechanism itself simply had to provide a low voltage on/off signal, maybe to switch using a relay? Obviously the fundamental ability to switch on/off gas discharge lamps must already be built in. Surely the timer does not have to be closely coupled to the switch? But I do accept that the cost might be a bit more than that of the high street versions.

Of course the metal column isn't an ideal environment for radio reception (though I have had a number of mobile conversations inside metal lifts). But, designed in from the start, the obvious place to consider for an aerial is up in the glass part.

I had in my mind the sophisticated timers I have seen in lamp posts in the past. They certainly looked like precision mechanisms and would undoubtedly have been quite expensive. I would guess that making non-mechanical device would by now be less expensive.

Your favourable rates part is a good point.

[Dave Liquorice]

I don't think The Natural Philosopher has actually been outside and away from *any* light source in the middle of a moonless and overcast night. It is dark, absolutely dark, can't see a thing dark. So dark that it is a little unnerving as you *know* you have your eyes open but can't see even the tiniest glimmer of anything.

I'd love to see him demonstrate running through a wood under such conditions without falling over or running into a branch or tree. Except of course none of us would be able to see him 'cause there is no light... So we will have to simulate it by fitting a completely light proof blindfold.

You don't need much light, starlight or reflected light pollution is ample. All but the slimmest of moons is provides much more, a full moon is as good as daylight.

[Dave Liquorice]

Operative word "bright" and it relies on the road being straight so the object is in the (dipped) beam.

Deer, cows, horses generally aren't (eyes excepted), tend to be dark in colour and move unpredictably, suddenly and fast.

A rabbit leapt out(*) in front of me a while back I was doing about 55mph it took out (apart from itself) the radiator grill, wind deflector, knocked the headlamp of its mountings and broke one of them. That was only a rabbit anything as large as the above is going to do serious damage to the car and probably you as well.

(*) I mean leapt as well the above damage was on a Discovery so 2 to 3' above the ground.