Sunday, December 13, 2009

Ranting Stan's Irrational Hatred Of The Week: Orange street lights

I don't care if they are more efficient or more effective - whoever came up with the idea of bathing our night time streets in an eerie, unearthly orange glow really deserves to swing from one of those lamp posts.

I grew up in the sixties when the majority of lamp posts used conventional white lighting. Obviously I wasn't a driver back then, but I can honestly say that I never noticed a particular problem with those sort of lights - and yet some meddling idiot decided to remove the comforting glow of simulated daylight and replace it with a sulphurous shroud of yellowy orange. For God's sake - why?

It's ridiculous and I hate it.

4 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

Woah. I grew up in the seventies and AFAIAC, 'traditional' street lights were yellow-ish. I prefer the white ones, to be honest, but they are more expensive to run.

Grum said...

Growing up in the fifties and sixties, I was told that orange street lights were better in thick fog. Perhaps I should say smog, for that is what we had in the days when everyone had a coal fire burning.

Apparently, white light caused too much reflection when combined with fog (or smog?), though I was never satisfied with the explanation myself.

TheFatBigot said...

I might be a cordless phone using, white collar wearing dishwasher addict who owes his spruce appearance to daily use of an electric razor; but I'm with you all the way on this one Mr Stan.

The glow emitted by those horrid orange things has an eerie and depressing feel. It might not have been smoggy before they were turned on, but it certainly was once the orange meanies got to work.

In the little village I grew up in there was a clear 100W bulb on the telegraph pole outside Mrs Lee's house. Mr Johnson changed it twice a year - he was the tallest man in the village.

opsimath said...

LPS lamps - the orange ones - are supposedly closer in their light emission to human sight than Hg vapour lamps; they also cause less light pollution and are, dare I even mention it, kinder on the 'environment'.

Hope this helps - I realise it probably won't.