Worcester's Red Light District... It's not what you think. But Why Are The Street Lights RED!!?
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- Опубліковано 23 сер 2024
- #worcester #bats #nature #infrastructure #streetlight
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Sometimes, nature needs a little helping hand... mainly because we've built on everything and ruined it all but that aside we've got red street lights! But why is this.... it's because of the bats. Worcester council have installed some interesting lighting to help bats see... or something like that. This video shall hopefully explain all.
I drove through these recently and they're AMAZING. I would strongly advocate for all our street lamps to be changed to these red LED's. Visibility seems to even be better but with out the harsh bright glare. Red light is better for retaining your night vision and it just feels so much better.
have seen a green version of these in the Netherlands and they are great. visibility is just as good or better than traditional white and without the glare too
It's also possible that they reduce ligth pollution. I would need to check this fact, however. Us astronomers use red light, because it doesn't interfere with our equipment as much. So, red lights would mean darker/more stary nigth skys which is also a huge win.
Anything is better than that hellish yellow sodium that caused eyestrain while wiping out nightvision.
Although they should ALSO do something about ludicrously bright car headlights that wash out nightvision. An air rifle would do it, I think.
Or just go back to Sox? Better than LEDs, they’re all so cheaply made and fail after a year 😂
@@TheCORC964 this isn’t strictly doesn’t to them being LED, more the fact they are designed with the cheapest cost in mind, and as such the LEDs are overdriven for a greater light output with less chips being used (the pence these cost adds up when mass produced)
I'm a HGV driver, ended up driving through these lights on a diversion off the M5 and I can tell you I'm a massive fan, I want them everywhere
It's always good to hear from an actual user. Nice comment.
As a light haulage driver, I second this comment..
Anyone old enough to remember the warm orange glow of sodium street lights?
What, anyone over the age of 8?
Still have them on my street
Yes introduced on smoggy parts of the motorway network. 😊
@@nicks4934Yes, and in the 50's too, before they had motorways. Must have been a decision by Claire Voyant.
On those suspended wires remember? M62, M61 1970s. Great days 😢
They should change over to red lighting purely for the following reasons:
1) red lights typically have a lower forward bias voltage and require less power to run for the same light output as a white or blue light
2) red light is better for night time as it doesn't interfere with human or animal circadian rhythms, meaning we'd all actually get a better nights sleep (unsure about the kids though)
3) you can now say "welcome to the Twilight Zone" come 8 'o clock and make a funny meme for the first few days it's implemented
what is a bias voltage?
@@SamSitar Use less energy I think.
Although red LEDs are about twice as efficient as white LEDs, the lumens per Watt are less for red LEDs because the eyes are less sensitive to red light than other colours including white light. So point (1) doesn't present the whole story.
What is a meme ? funny or otherwise. Thanks.
@@SamSitar its the voltage that is required to make the LED turn on..
RED 2.0V or less
Ultraviolet LEDs 3.0V +
Ultraviolet leds are what are used to make white light by illuminating phosphorus.
Small correction, but the street lights shown at the start weren’t installed until earlier this year. The ones in 2019 were just a handful at the roundabout at the top of the road. They proved a success so rolled them out fully this year.
Source: am a nearby resident 😅
Always nice to have a local comment to clear things up! ;-))
Thank you for the clarification. :)
Are you a Bat?
@@willtricks9432I’m not saying I am, but I could be 🫣😂
@@joshuawarner3641: The flowing black cloak really suits you!
In this episode, John becomes an eco warrior and bat champion. 😂
He sure does good on him!
This is the kind of cutting edge content I come here for!
🤣
I had a similar idea years ago, but instead of red, I went with yellow, to simulate the old style sodium lamps. To be fair, I never even considered the nature side of things.
I was more focused on astronomy, and nostalgia.
I wonder if thse red lamps are monochromatic? If so, that's good for astronomy purposes too - It's easy to filter a single wavelength of light.
LED's are typically one frequency unless the colour is made by a phosphor coating, which most white ones are.
I live very close to that road lol, I always wondered why they were that colour. Also, there is loads of bats in my area, higher than usual so it now makes sense
I’m all for these! They’re good for local wildlife; they look really cool; and they are much less harsh on human eyes. I absolutely detest how bright white LED streetlights and headlights are getting at the moment, so these red lights seem to be the perfect alternative!
Also to note, I’m not suggesting that red headlights would be a good idea, that would just be confusing
@@Living_Life_RN Please, no! I like proper white light for seeing cars, pedestrians and other things that I need to avoid when driving, whether it's white street lights or white car headlights. I find the monochromatic yellow of low-pressure sodium or the red of LED very tiring on my eyes, because they struggle to make sense of objects which are illuminated by just one colour.
For that reason, I prefer the more modern high-pressure sodium lights with a pale peach cast and a broader spectrum to the traditional low-pressure sodium lights which are just a couple of spectral lines and so are intense orange.
@@Mortimer50145 You don't need colour rendering from street lights, that's what your headlights are for. Monochromatic lighting from low pressure sodium is the best as it cuts through fog and mist far better than white light. My other half has night blindness, which means that she can't see at all in the awful colour temperature of LED street lighting.
@@TestGearJunkie. We'll have to agree to differ. I prefer white light and find monochromatic low-pressure sodium lights very tiring on my eyes. The same applies to a red/orange photographic safe light: I found I could work in a darkroom for only an hour or so before my eyes started to hurt.
I find high-pressure (peach coloured) sodium lights much nice to drive by than low-pressume (monochromatic orange). But LED streetlights are the best for me. But I accept that other people may prefer something different.
Headlights are only any good for the distance that they illuminate. If you've got to dip your lights because of cars ahead (same or opposite direction) then the only thing that will illuminate anything beyond their beam is the street lights.
@@Mortimer50145Yes but both types of sodium are being phased out everywhere but they're still better than any LED alternative.
I drove through a roundabout close to Great Malvern with those red lights, it looked really weird but also cool
They are at the junction of A38 and A4104 at Ryall (Upton on Severn). Look really good!
@@davidbagley3678 it was exactly that roundabout
To be fair Malvern is pretty weird 🤣
@@davidbagley3678 I went through the new roundabout in March and me and the missus were wondering why it had red lights, then last night we noticed that they'd changed the lighting on a roundabout just down the road from us in Evesham, we now know the answer.
The same kind of lighting has been installed a few miles south of Worcester on a new roundabout on the A38. Night vision, especially in misty conditions, is very good.
Yes, red light is supposed to be good at protecting night vision as the pupils don’t constrict as much.
These are indeed a great idea and having driven through the area its fine to drive through, better than normal lighting 100%. Great video Jon.
Hopefully these get used more and more instead of the headache-inducing white LEDs which have been installed around my way.
B4083 Pershore and the A4104 / A38 roundabout also have red street lighting. Was weird seeing them for the first time though. Seems like they are putting the red LEDs on newer roads/LED upgrades though, so other parts may have it too
Next time you're walking through a town or city centre at night, have a look how many shops and offices either have lights or screens still on after closing. Think of all the energy that could be saved if even some of them were turned off at night.
We like to make Greta cry.
Careful, that's borderline common sense right there.
It helps to deter crime, if only slightly.
Or maybe we could have some regulator on the streetlamps and it would adjust their light output according to light conditions on the street. I see nothing wrong with screens and displays being on after closing hours as people, in cities at least, are more active in evenings and night than they were let's say three decades ago.
Sometimes commercial properties get a discount on their electricity if they use over a certain amount.
I once worked somewhere that would leave things on all night, so they could use enough to get a discount.
Probably better for astronomy also, as the introduction of brighter and more white street lighting has increased light pollution and makes star gazing harder. The old sodium orange street lights were less of a problem because the monochromatic colour was easier to filter out. I expect these lights have a similar benefit.
Just like the wonderful glow of the low pressure sodium lights. Never understood why the LED replacements had to be pure white!!!
@eljay5009 Something to do with the LED's natively emitting that horrid blue light and produces more lumens per watt consumed. Any other colour LED has to have a coating on it to make the new colour, and that reduces the lumens a bit. I've seen quite a few replacement LED streetlights around Leicestershire are now semi warm white when the original LED fixture fails.
Good excuse, but we all know its because they miss the glow we had with the old sodium bulbs.
Roxanne.... brilliant 😅
I spotted that. He's showing his age coming out with a joke like that... but then, so am I for understanding it 🤣
I imagine there will be a lot of people saying they went along this road after today's mayhem on the M5 tonight. These lights are great too as they reduce glare. I believe we have the Worcestershire wildlife trust to thank as they pushed for the installation up at Warndon woods.
God I cannot wait for these to be all over the country. I've had enough of tiny pools of blinding white light in between completely black darkness. I loved Sodium lamps and I'm not even that old.
I've lived places where the birds literally never sleep now because of the terrible LED lights - and it makes it difficult for me to sleep too!
I would suggest that you sleep inside so as to avoid the terrible LED lights, it will be to your benefit and much warmer than sleeping outdoors
@@TheMatchlock My condolences, I'm sorry you live in a house without windows.
@@TheMatchlock Imagine living in a place where LED lighting has been invented, but curtains apparently haven't. 🤷🏻♂️
@@Technaudio To be fair, curtains often don't cut it for these lights, even blackout blinds can struggle unless you have a complete seal around the window.
@@Croz89 And cutting out all the light like that has the downside of messing with your circadian rhythm on the other side.
This is a fantastic idea, we should have more of these lights. Modern LED’s have needlessly white light. No reason why it shouldn’t be more orange or red.
On war ships and submarines they use red lighting as our eyes adjust to darkness a lot quicker, red street lighting may actually prove to be safer for us as well. A win win .🙂
It should also be noted that white street lighting messes with us humans too as they can muck up our circadian rhythms.
And blackout blinds to block it out mess with your circadian rhythm on the other end too. Though daylight alarm clocks are a thing, that being an alarm clock that lights up in the morning instead of, or as well as, an audio alarm.
@@TheAkashicTravelleryep, bought one of those clocks and a decent blackout blind last week. I have an LED street light outside my room and curtains just weren’t cutting enough of the light out. Never felt better tbh
As a former employee of Worcestershire County Council yay for past me! Although my job had nothing to do with bats. Or roads. Or cars. Or pears. They are slightly obsessed with pears in the council.
I was looking at a house in Worcestershire a few weeks ago which is on a newish estate and it has no street lights (not completely dark at night due to lights from houses,etc) because there are bat nesting sites nearby. Again, yay for Worcestershire CC.
Interesting video, thank you.
Pairs of what?
Submarine control rooms have red lighting at night so the officer of the watch can see through the periscopes.
Same with ships and even small yachts.
Edit. Even without the periscopes 😂
Would love to see this rolled-out widely
definitely curios for a long term study of the drivers & residents for accidents, sleep quality etc.
My city went with a warm white LED instead of the cold white that's being installed lots of places. They did it after consultation with the International Dark-Sky Association, and they're absolutely great. They are white enough that you get pretty good color rendering, enough blue to interfere with human sleep (which, when it comes to street lights, is a VERY good thing, you don't want drivers falling asleep), full cutoff so they're not lighting up the windows of homes, and reduced brightness from the old lights.
I absolutely despised the old high pressure sodium orange, and fortunately we never had the yellow low pressure sodium here. The LEDs are even nicer than the old greenish-white mercury vapor, which the bats here had adapted to pretty easily decades ago, you'd always find lots of bats feasting near those MV lights.
I would HATE these red lights for general use, I could see them being a good idea for limited applications near forests if the warm white was demonstrated to have negative effects on bats, but no color rendering and lack of blue is not going to be even remotely good for sleepy late night drivers, so their use should be very limited.
You're wrong, the colour of fire (2200k ish amber) is the maximum on the colour range that humans should experience after sunset, everything below that, like these red led's, is even better. The way we live our modern life with screens and hyperlighting past daylight has a negative impact on our brains.
@@DavidColex IF AND ONLY IF they are intending to sleep. Driving a car is NOT something you want humans to be sleepy for. Car crashes are known to have a VERY negative impact on brains (and bones, and muscles, and organs, and skin).
Street lights should absolutely NOT be red, they should not be amber, and they should not be monochrome.
@@jonc4403 Bollocks, we used amber lights for decades, and I see no decrease of sleep-related accidents after we moved to the 3-4000K LEDs
I drove along the A38 the other day and went 'oh red light district'. Which instinctively reminded me of this video.
Loving the colourful language and wonderful humour. I haven’t seen any street lights red but there are some in built up areas and in some towns and cities and I still think it’s a good idea. Very nice to drive underneath them.
Pretty similar to good old SOX (Low Pressure Sodium), which was the most eco-friendly light source around until LED came and made things worse for the most part. And now we are sort of going back again, who would have thought.
I work on the Railway and we do a lot of work at night so use a lot of bright lights. A number of years ago we had some tower lights set up and this attracted large numbers of insects. The bats didn’t care about the light they had an ‘all you can eat buffet’ for 3 nights. Great watching them feed on the wing.
I've just retired as a driver of 46 years. Once upon a time, quite a bit of consideration was given to the placement by the authorities of lights adjacent to running lines. Especially red yellow or green, for obvious reasons. That went out of the window years ago. Now anything goes! These red streetlights can't be worse than the current crop of white LED ones, which directly dazzle, but also at the same time, put very little light on the ground. They make gloomy pools of mystery interspersed with completely dark and unlit tranches. The old sodium ones were way better at doing what they were put there for! I like the idea of these red ones for the bats, I like bats, but where I live, they aren't bothered by bright lights and they'll be out at dusk aback of my house as usual. On another note, why, when using elevating lights on night worksites, are they never put up to full height, even when there is nothing to prevent it? It's always been like that even in the days of the old pump up 500w halogen arrays. They are always at bottom and blind drivers passing worksites, instead of being up there and shining down, even worse when it takes longer to pass due to associated TSRs.
Yey, well done home town. And despite being one of the largest modern housing estates in Europe, Warndon villages has some lovely walks and cycle trails through parks and woodland, now with extra bats. Nice video, great channel. 👍
Loved the little cameo from The Count. He was always my favourite Sesame Street character. Ha Ha Ha!
This is also good for night vision; astronomers often use red light to illuminate their equipment, star guides etc so as not to adversely affect their ability to view dim objects in the night sky such as stars, galaxies, nebulae etc.
and I imagine as well that the light from the red LEDs would be easier than that from the white LEDs to filter out for telescopic observing since it will be at a narrower wavelength range
This is down my road!
Same
Worcester lad here and have just driven through these lights on the way home then saw this vid! They’ve also just installed one in the village of Kempsey just outside of Worcester as well. Interesting vid.
Thank you, we drove through this area on an unscheduled diversion and did wonder why the street lights were red. As is the way of things I'd completely forgotten to goole it when I got home
It's nice to finally have this little mystery solved.
Like driving through a submarine I guess ?
We get bats flying around behind our house, me and mrs wife sit and watch them in summer twilight. Its so fascinating seeing them dart about in pretty much complete silence, we put our upstairs bedroom lights on to attract the insects and we feel like we’re feeding them. They never thank us though.
My wife also got pissed on by one in the Chester zoo bat house a few years ago, she felt really honoured 🤦🏼♂️😂
I think french had a ronance with yellow car head lights in the sixties. They had studies that shown that yellow light is better for the driver
What a great idea. The light pollution (wasted light) from the standard led street lights is terrible. Gone is the soft warm glow of the old sodium lamps, to be replaced by bright white lights. It really struck me how bad it had got the last time I was on the Isle of Wight. I used to like driving up to the top of Culver down late in the evening to look out across the Solent at the mainland. Used to be a nice sight, the soft orange glow of the street lamps across the water. But go up there these days and all you can see is a white glare spreading out along the coast. Would be great to see these new red lights spread throughout the country.
that little smirk telling the roxanne joke
I think I'm hilarious :D
I live in south brum and drove through here a week or so ago which I don't usually do, I had no idea and was so confused and amazed, this video came at a perfect time haha thanks. I fully support and encourage more of these lights.
I wish they would install these as standard. I had a High Pressure Sodium street light outside my home switched to a LED and for weeks I had issues with sleeping. I blamed the increase in blue light been emitted by the new lights for this and I think the new LED lights are too bright anyway. Plus I have read that the old yellow Sodium lamps where better for enabling drivers to spot pedestrians (something to do with better contrast if I remember correctly).
This is incredibly relevant to my interests! The other week, I was driving down the M5 at Late o’clock at night, and the M5 was closed due to reasons. I was diverted off the M5 to then drive through every back road in Worcestershire, and one of them was this red light district.
I was confused, but now I’m not!
Thanks, AutoShenanigan!
Street Lighting was once orange lit on the roads and replaced by white LEDs around 2015.
Where I’m from in Hertfordshire in a town called Stevenage, everywhere was orange street lights until 2015 when the LEDs took over which was completed in 2017.
They should bring back the orange ones but as a LED version as it had a characteristic glow when it snowed or even put these red LED ones up around Hertfordshire as we have bats here too.
Good for the bats and these look good for humans too. Less glare and preserve night vision.
Especially helpful if you have bats in your belfry. Love it - keep up the good work!!!
Loving your quips today John "bat based business " Roxanne "putting on that red light " very good ! Informative too. Thank you as always. I have liked too so hope this is wicked, sweet, awesome!
I always learn something watching your videos and they always make me laugh.
They’re also used on a housing estate in near Chichester. Not sure which year they were installed
This is the best video I've ever seen about anything
as someone that's color blind and i need to wear red tinted glasses to drive, this would royally screw up the little bit of filtering that i get and make the distinction between lit brake lights to braking brake lights absolute hell.
Thanks for the video, we had a drive down the road to Worcester to see what they looked like as we had no idea they were there.
I’d like these red lights in my street. The blackbird singing in the dead of night might appreciate them as well. I had to move into the ‘back’ bedroom after the council installed new led lighting a couple of years ago. But, hey, I’m saving on my electricity bill as I don’t need to switch on lights in the front rooms at any time of day or night now.
I love your unique blend of very informative and "I don't give a shit"
I live a minute away from those street lights. I had no idea you were in my home city!
I went through there the other week when the M5 was closed and it was so weird after doing about 70 miles of white light 😂 interesting reason why though!
Oooh! Extra Nature Edition! Very good!
How about a Happy Eater/ Little Thief video... There's two near me one now a fish and chip resturant and one seemingly mothballed. What where the great ones and what went on??? I worked a summer in one and it was chaotic..
Ah! The county of my birth gets onto Auto Shenanigans at last!
I've been through a set of these down in south wales, I was wondering what they were for.
Excellent! I really look forward to the mid week treat episodes 👍🏻🙂
I'm from Worcester, and I've never even noticed this.... I will now!
I am quite sure that the eco-conscious Sting will be all favour of using his well known ditty as a campaign theme. And I think this is a fantastic idea. I find that whilst in places like service stations or high streets you do perhaps need full lighting, the rest of the time it is just plain light pollution. I love when we visit my father-in-law because he lives in Pinchbeck where there is a great deal less light pollution and you can see the stars pretty clearly, ditto when I visit my ma in Anglesey and head to the south of Holy Island.
I find bright light distracting, even confusing and can be quite tiring very quickly, but if on an open road with no lighting, I find I am far more calm and alert. I can only see this as a good thing, especially as you point out the ecological benefits not just for the other species but for us as a whole. It still amazes me how short sighted many people are as to how the world ‘works’ 🙄
Cheers, great stuff as ever John 👍🍀🍻
I'd love to see these everywhere.
I liked the look of low pressure sodium lightning (the really monochromatic orange one) and have never been a fan of the white replacements.
There are still many unlit stretches of motorway and A roads .Parts of the A1, A38 and those roads are long and tiring to drive along after dark.The A5 through shropshire as is the A41 and the A49. Worst road in shropshire is the A 519.Its twisty and very unforgiving but a national speed limit.Theres always holes in hedgerows and bits of bumper etc along it.
These need to be brought to the rest of the country
I had heard of these, but never knew why! Now I do! Great video John
Some of these were also installed on the Comber Greenway (ok, not a road, but a footpath/cycleway) in Belfast a couple of weeks ago.
Thanks
Thanks for caring for the environment in a non preachy way. Good chap. They should also do this in residential areas as one of these LED super troopers shines through my bedroom window.
Thanks!
Thanks a lot mate!
I remember bright bloody street lights the required blackout curtains to be put in the bedroom. I remember when they used to switch the street lights off after midnight. Good idea this and thanks for telling me.
We have them in Redditch too
Red ditch...lol
Who'd have thought that Worcester and Roxanne would share some useful products! 🤣
Thanks for your batty story. Interesting.
Well that stuff about the bats was unexpected. I thought you were going to explain that red light doesn't affect your dark adaptation, so your pupils remain fully dilated even when there is fairly bright red illumination, meaning that you don't lose your night vision for a few minutes when it goes dark again. Same reason red lights are used in submarines, and the best dash illumination colour is red.
I remember old street lights (1980s-90s). They used to be this colour when they were cold and just turned on. As they warmed up they would go to orange, where some would stop changing colour and create a weird hue in the street where you couldn't the true colours of anything (e.g. bushes looked blue). Some lights continued changing colour as they got hotter - all the way to yellow. Pure brilliant white of today's LEDs didn't happen.
“Bat based business“ deserves a bonus Thumbs up button.
Its about time. Truckers in th US used to use red lights in cabs for anti glare. Use red at night and your eyes dont react as badly. Red is the best. I wish they were everywhere. They just put white/blue near me. Its the complete opposite
NEW DRINKING GAME!!! Drink every time Jon say's BAT
Something I learned for night navigation with military activities was that red light also disrupts our night vision least, and can't be seen over such long distances - I've often bemoaned that street lights are white, and getting whiter with the new LED street lighting we have today, which is particularly bad for our night vision, which can take 15 minutes or so to full develop after being exposed to light - green and blue light frequencies are particularly damaging to our night vision, and these new white LED headlights and streetlights are far closer to the blue end of the spectrum than the older incandescent bulbs, resulting in a more stark dazzling effect. These red street lights will be better for motorists than going through oceans of darkness and islands of intense light, as frequently seen on some highway/motorway junctions, if installed elsewhere within the network, and I suspect may reduce road fatalities overall, due to being less dazzling upon entering a lit up junction, and allowing night vision to return more rapidly upon leaving a lit up junction.
The bats shitting stuff out and the circle of life song part might be as good as comedy gets
Always like driving through here, glad you've covered it.
Liked the reference to Roxanne at the end!
Yay... My neck of the woods... Cheers John...
Not having experienced these lights in this area in person, they appear to be more like low-pressure sodium (LPS or SOX) in color. I was in Flagstaff Arizona a couple years ago, and they had converted low-pressure sodium roadway fixtures in parts of the city to amber LED because there is an observatory close by where the telescopes can filter out the monochromatic wavelength. When I first saw these fixtures turned on, I thought they were LPS, but when I looked at them closer, you could see the individual diodes in the fixtures. LPS fixtures are very rare in the US except mainly around observatories. They were somewhat popular in some areas in the 1990’s because of their energy efficiency, but that was short lived, and most of them have most likely been replaced with white LED fixtures.
Liked the police reference referring to their song Roxanne 😊
I drove over a bridge with these here in the Netherlands recently so it may also help with some fish in those situations
I live in Worcester so drive past them quite a lot, they have recently installed even more, they’re pretty cool!
Red light uses less energy as well and also doesn’t affect night vision . The longer wavelength is easier for our eyes
Bring back Sodium Lighting. Better for bats and better for humans too.
I was kind of hoping for Put on the Red Light (Roxanne) by The Police for the outro. Super interesting mid-week update - thank you!
That would get a DMCA copyright strike - and nobody wants to get stung.
@@David_Crayford Indeed. I played it locally anyway!
@@millstonebarn Heard it so many times, I can play it in my head! LOL
Be like walking along Oudezijds Voorburgwal ! but not so much fun 😉
This should be adopted by all highway authorities responsible for street lighting, as it is less polluting light wise and we retain our night vision we might get to see more of the night sky without going to a dark sky location.
These should be rolled out everywhere. Bats are protected species and are really important. More importantly though, have you ever experienced the joy of snow falling under the hum of an old amber street lamp? Sure the hum is gone with LEDs but the snow falling under the red light would be just as satisfying!
You should make a video on Theydon Bois in Essex (almost London), the only if not one of the only places that has no street lights at all. The reason is quite interesting and the solution they had for it. All stems back from a very long time ago but it's stuck to this day, I use the tube station there and always thought it was strangely dark which made me Google it. Look it up, but could make a good video as a follow up to this one 👍
I will look into this...