this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
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When my family complained about lack of street lights at night-time, I said that birds can't sleep. They all thought I was joking, and I kenda went with this story, since they didn't seem to be bothered about wildlife
Like, I kinda get it that turning off the lights at 10:30pm might be annoying and less safe, but realistically.. who the hell drives or even walks at this hours? I mean, people who party do, but that's rare and that's why you have floodlights in cars for, and torches in phones.
At the same time I kinda get it that streetlights would still indeed be safer, and that - in my culture at least - putting animals' welfare near equal to that of humans' is considered weird, if not crazy, so Idk how do I feel about this issue
huh? lots of people are out after 22:30 (10:30 pm is a wild thing to write), especially in any moderately sized city. And the problem isn't generally street lights since they're very much made to shine onto the ground, the problem is any light source that lets light escape into the sky.
I just connected car dependancy to excessive light pollution and now I am sad
Yep, you don't normally see flood lights every 100m on a railway like you get on a highway...
wait what your highways have lights? isn't the whole point of cars having headlights that you don't need lights on the roads aside from places like intersections?
Depends on the road, but yeah, some parts don't have lights. I guess you'd call it a freeway in most places where it does.
i mean here in sweden most parts of most roads don't have lights, only urban streets or intersections on roads have lights.
and to be clear by "road" i mean things with few junctions where the priority is speed, and "street" is where there's many junctions and the priority is access to stuff like housing/amenities.
This is the sort of road im referring to: https://maps.app.goo.gl/rtKiUN6XXRoWSvjH9?g_st=ac
https://maps.app.goo.gl/hceSnJRYZQffRMWW7?g_st=ac
Correct me if im wrong but I think most railways only have lights near the stations and crossings: https://maps.app.goo.gl/xZGgdEge4yrKkJMw7?g_st=ac
https://maps.app.goo.gl/xi25KjgaV732PJyt9?g_st=ac
It's not actually less safe. No study was able to show a link between light and safety.
Interesting. Where do you take your knowledge from?
I did my PhD on light pollution. I don't have the references on hand but it is well known in the field.
C'mon pal, we know you have at least 3-4 copies of that dissertation lying around.
I mostly worked on the physics side, being a physicist. But I did dug up a reference for you. You can start from there: doi.org/10.3310/phr03110
Just backing up the point, I took a course on light pollution and this was the “common myth” our professor debunked on the first lesson.
I don't have a PhD but I do hate light pollution. And while I'm too lazy to look up a source, I can offer an explanation, at least for one effect. Shitty outdoor lighting produces a lot of glare. Meaning if you're on a path that is lit with very bright lights, especially if you can see the bulb directly, your eyes won't adapt to the lower light and anything in shadow becomes invisible. Pools of darkness in brightly lit areas are a terrific place to hide.
Anecdotally, problem people are also afraid of the dark. There's a park near my house that serves as a shortcut between two streets. It has two paths. One is a brightly lit paved walkway next to the baseball diamonds, and the other is an unlit service road. I usually take the unlit path because glare tends to give me headaches. I have seen more sketchy shit happen on the brightly lit path from afar than I have ever seen on the dark path.