I was driving home tonight and had a bit of a scare....
It was really quite dark, despite the fact there were street lights there, and it was only as I passed this car that I realised the driver was getting something out of it with the door wide open. The car was a dark colour and I really could not see it until the last second, it really shook me up because the car was facing me (i.e. he was parked on the "wrong" side of the road, so if I'd have hit his door it would have crushed him like a nut cracker.....

But, if it was an area with street lights, how come I did not see him from way back ?
Because modern street lights are CRAP.
OK, older "sodium" type street lights made everything orange, but at least they gave out plenty of light and did what they said on the can : "street lights".

Three supplementary points :

If I'd have hit him would that have been my fault (as his door was wide open in the dark and he was parked on the "wrong" side of the road) ?
Is it a false memory or do some cars have reflectors in the ends of the doors ? Not that they'd have worked with him because he was parked on the "wrong side of the road !
Good advice : buy a light coloured car, they really are safer (they really are actually, statistically).....

I'm not entirely in the know how of the local Street Lighting setup in Kent, but am aware that where the columns have been upgraded/replaced with LED's and are now under the central managment system, they can be individually controlled to dim/brighten them at different times of the night.

Might be worth checking with your local highway authority / council (whoever deals with the street lighting in your area) to see if they are dimmed at all.

You're not the only one.  We've got the modern LED style here and they don't do a great job of lighting the streets at all.

Nice to know i am not the only one.

Here in Bournemouth they are shocking and have to now be super careful for scroats on scooters with no lights wearing all black, i have a series of T junctions that i have to cross daily and I have to wind the windows down to get a clear guarenteed vision as the street lights are just too poor.

It's like a dirty type of light, the beam scatter is very poor. 

Back in the 80's and 90's street lights were much brighter and safer for pedestrians. A way for councils to save a bag of money but our council tax still goes up.

Also, if you wear glasses full time then it's even harder now that a lot of cars have LED lights that completely dazzle oncoming. Not saying LED lights on cars are pants because they are actually better IMO, unless you are facing them yourself. LOL

 

1 hour ago, Steve said:

Back in the 80's and 90's street lights were much brighter and safer for pedestrians. A way for councils to save a bag of money 

I don't think it's just about saving money, there's all this stuff about "light scatter" for everything from wildlife to astronomers.
To that I'd say if you're so bothered about saving every life you suppress the whole of society for a virus 99% of people were surviving (and had an average age of death in the early 80s) why are you taking risks with poor street lighting ? ! ?

Our local council passed control of the street lighting to a private company and the first thing they did was take out the only lamp standard that was actually over the footpath. All the others are on the other side of the road (grass verge), buried in vegetation. They've also been changed to LED and are now virtually useless, just pools of dim light a few metres across. The first time I came home after it had been done I nearly drove into our front fence because I couldn't see the entrance to the drive. I've needed to put reflectors on the posts to locate them.

When we had orange sodium lighting on our street, the road & kerb was lit up from post to post but now with these LED lights there's a black unlit patch between the posts, so this isn't great for walkers and road users, we have a lamp post right outside our house, since we had the sodium lamp replaced with LED it's broken down easily six times now, issues from mass flickering/not coming on/staying on.......Worst one which happened a few months ago was a light further down the street had actually come off the angled bracket, we had severe high winds when that happened, so it was fixed tight enough. 

Another thing I'm seeing whilst out during the daytime is just how many are still stuck on.

15 hours ago, Justin Smith said:

Good advice : buy a light coloured car, they really are safer (they really are actually, statistically).....

My mam who's long gone now always said this about mindful purchases......

Never buy a light grey car because it'll blend in fog.
Never buy a black car because it'll blend in the dark.
Never buy a white car because it'll blend in the snow.
Never buy a orange car because it'll blend in whilst sun blinded.

Must be more!! 🙄

We've always had in yer face bright green cars in the past but it wouldn't help if you was driving by fields of grass......🤣 😂 🤣 Though I did have a black Escort and me mam went bonkers at me!!

4 minutes ago, Ian Lanc said:

My mam who's long gone now always said this about mindful purchases......

Never buy a light grey car because it'll blend in fog.
Never buy a black car because it'll blend in the dark.
Never buy a white car because it'll blend in the snow.
Never buy a orange car because it'll blend in whilst sun blinded.

Must be more!! 🙄

We've always had in yer face bright green cars in the past but it wouldn't help if you was driving by fields of grass......🤣 😂 🤣 Though I did have a black Escort and me mam went bonkers at me!!

I seem to remember reading that, statistically, yellow cars are the safest.
Hence the reason when I built my 2.0 Pinto Westfield SE1 (back in 1991....) it was yellow !

1 hour ago, Ian Lanc said:

Never buy a light grey car because it'll blend in fog.
Never buy a black car because it'll blend in the dark.
Never buy a white car because it'll blend in the snow.
Never buy a orange car because it'll blend in whilst sun blinded.

Deviating from the post (as I often do) can ask Ian, are you native to Nottinghamshire  ?

Well, just to be different, quite pleased with ours visbility-wise. Council have progressively changed the lights on my road over the last couple of years, from the old sodium type giving an orange light, to a different design (presumably LED) giving a white light.

The new type only light the area over the actual road, with much less "scatter" than the previous ones, giving very good visibility, akin to bright moonlight. No shadowy areas between columns either, the downside seems to be they fail more often, I've reported 3 in the last year!

Still, better than the road where I lived as a kid, still gas lamps then!😀

 

5 hours ago, Steve said:

a lot of cars have LED lights that completely dazzle oncoming. Not saying LED lights on cars are pants because they are actually better IMO, unless you are facing them yourself. LOL

I agree entirely, bulbs are limited by power in, which means that the light power from an LED is far too high.  And the design is akin to the fairy lights on your Xmas tree.  Fashion has overtaken function.

1 hour ago, Justin Smith said:

statistically, yellow cars are the safest.

If you are old enough to remember the Green of a "Post Office Telephones" Minor van, When they went to yellow vans, the accident rate showd a considerable drop.

16 hours ago, Justin Smith said:

reflectors in the ends of the doors

I'm sure my 2.8i Capri had them, but I have refective tape on the ends of the doors, and under the lip of the hatch on all my cars, so that is visible wth a door open.

There was also a difference between the yellow/orange light from an old streetlamp, which enabled the recognition of white light from a car before the body of the car became visible.  This has completely gone with both car and street lamps using LEDs

If a car is parked offside to, then the driver should turn of the headlights, but off course, automatic lights, and get you home lights don't work like that.....

12 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Still, better than the road where I lived as a kid, still gas lamps then!

I've seen pictures of those in history books !

Seriously they were still used in the part of London I was born, and on railway stations for a long time!

I thought there was another advantage that orange light didn't affect your night vision so much ?

Or have I gt that wrong ?

4 minutes ago, Paulkp said:

I'm sure my 2.8i Capri had them,

I'll bet you wish you still had that !

One of the problems with sodium lights, which LEDs have them beat, is that the sodium lights are monochromatic.

This means they only emit a single wavelength of light so a lot of coloured things can actually appear black/unlit under them.

You can see more colours under white LEDs even at a lower brightness.

Just now, alexp999 said:

One of the problems with sodium lights, which LEDs have them beat, is that the sodium lights are monochromatic.

This means they only emit a single wavelength of light so a lot of coloured things can actually appear black/unlit under them.

I would agreed, but that also has its advantages, as recounted above.

2 hours ago, alexp999 said:

is that the sodium lights are monochromatic.

Fun Fact:

Back in the 1960's / 1970's before colour TV there was a police series called "Z Cars" which used Ford Zephyrs.

The programme producers ordered that the cars be Yellow because they showed up as 'White' under the sodium street lights. Actual true white cars looked a kind of grey on the old B&W TV's

2 hours ago, Justin Smith said:

orange light didn't affect your night vision so much

Submarines on Patrol used to adopt Red lighting at Sunset, and back to White at sunrise, to give control room watchkeepers some night vision.  When going up to periscope depth at night, (in the days of only optical periscopes) control room lighting would be switched to Black some time before.  By black, only dim instrument lighting.  It is amazing how much the eye can see after about 10 minutes of black lighting, and it does not take much white light to lose it !

 

2 hours ago, alexp999 said:

sodium lights are monochromatic.

With red lighting, colours do change from those perceived in white light.

 

The big trouble with a bright light, is that you cannot see anything behind it.  Indeed I think the military have used it to hide armoured vehicles in daylight.  Even brake lights, and DRLs are unnecessarily bright on some cars, as are the traffic lights on a pedestrian crossing, thus hiding a pedestrian waiting to cross.

Getting back on topic, the LED street lights here do not seem very effective.

1 hour ago, Paulkp said:

Submarines on Patrol used to adopt Red lighting at Sunset,

We're excelling at going off topic on this thread. First "Z Cars", now "Das Boot" (or maybe  "The Hunt for Red October" for a red theme!😀).

21 hours ago, Justin Smith said:

Is it a false memory or do some cars have reflectors in the ends of the doors ?

All my cars have had them, usually stuck on by myself using some 'bicycle' reflectors and double sided tape. The 2 I remember that didn't need them was my Celica GT4 and a Merc C240, which both had lights that lit up red...

Golfs have door panel reflectors from Mk4 to Mk7.  Don't think the Mk8 has them though.

Mk3 & Mk4 Focus also have them.

20 hours ago, unofix said:

Deviating from the post (as I often do) can ask Ian, are you native to Nottinghamshire  ?

Born in Shirebrook which is just in Derbyshire/borderline to Nottinghamshire, moved from Shirebrook in 89' to live in Mansfield until 92 - then moved to Mansfield Woodhouse to this day.

Why you ask ? 🙂

Sorry Justin not meaning to hijack yer thread but at least it bumps it up to the top 😜

15 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

We're excelling at going off topic on this thread. First "Z Cars", now "Das Boot" (or maybe  "The Hunt for Red October" for a red theme!😀).

Right here's a reply to get things back on topic 🤭

Who remembers the older safety reflective belts which cyclists used in the 70's & 80's, even some pedestrians using them, the belt clipped around your waist with a shoulder strap ??

Not the modern 3M highly reflective stuff, but a kind of luminescent yellow strapping, it shon well during the daytime too........ Well orange sodium street lighting neutralised the luminescent effect of such belts so became useless at night whilst under street lights, when car headlights shon on the belts they was just a dull white colour, the luminescent straps work under LED street lighting though.

21 hours ago, Ian Lanc said:

and me mam went bonkers

Hi Ian, just that I noticed you called your mother "Mam" which is typically a Geordie or Welsh thing. I know that when I used to look for cards for my mother it annoyed me immensely that they all said "Mum" 🙁

In recent years I've noticed there have been a few cards with Mam, sadly for me too late, but at least this year my granddaughter was able to give her Mammy a card that said just that. 😀

Well now back to this Street Light business 🤣