They've always turned off the streetlights at night on the Isle of Man, and used to do it in many parts of the UK too. When they switched to all-night lighting in parts of the UK the crime rate went UP as it was easier for crims to find their way about.
No if its well lit it makes the criminals more visible and easier to see also it makes them nervous if they are walking to a house that they are going to rob
Dark streets reduces crime reports, which is what the council wants. Unlit streets may reduce burgularies, but drug dealing and homicides would go up, my area is hell with no lights people usually goes missing and property gets damage by chavs and no one knows or reports it because they can't see it. that's how it "reduces crime".
TAOFLEDERMAUS holy shit balls, you were a fan of photon? Please find out if he's still alive for us? Last we knew he married an Indian girl so he could be in a "chicken" korma right now!
Lol,copper thrives, bad around Memphis here, but interesting to see the U.K is well protected with the same police cameras, no privacy, even inside your home anymore..
@@jshaw4757 fUCK! I hadn't heard about those, something is wrong with this whole covid thing, I mean when they have to bribe people with a chance to win a new car just for getting a shot, something is fucking wrong, and everyone is asleep at the wheel, they gave expired shots to people here in town, how the fuck is a new vaccine expired already? Turns out it expired a couple of years ago, and this shit was in the local media.. Good luck to everyone!
@Chris Murphy Orange is also a better colour for fog at night , like photonic , i test lamps as well , White light breaks up easily in fog and reflect so much that it is hard to see whats in front of you ( the wall of light ) its the colour bleu what causes so much reflection because it is a higher frequenty light , filter the colour bleu out whit and you get yellow , whit a yellow lamp you can see the road insted of the fog .
tizoro3 Okay, how about another law that would make you obliged to shout the name of the crime you are currently commiting? Or maybe a one that orders a criminal to go to the police station after criminal act?
chargrilledcharlie If 1,500 foreigners arrived at England's shore each day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, 50 years ago, there would be a declaration of war. But now that cultural-marxists are in charge, culture and homelands don't matter any more and we should leave our doors unlocked because everyone has a right to enter our homes if they so desire. Who are we to say our homes are OUR homes? That's just bigoted and racist and xenophobic.
Wow. So what they are saying is, it is cheaper to deal with crimes committed due to the lights being out than to leave them on? That is quite the greedy and cold-hearted decision...
BrainSeepsOut its been shown many time that a reduction in un-necessary lighting reduces crime levels. After all, constant street lighting only came into this country in the last 60 or so years. Where were the masses of crime then?
cravenjooooooooooooo There is a ban on certain kinds of knives, such as flick knives and any assisted (gravity, spring, or otherwise) release knives. Knives above a certain length cannot be carried in public unless it’s for transport or some special exceptions. You may live in the UK, but I live in the UK and know how to google. Magic.
I can't be the only one who was laughing through the first half waiting for some sort of gigantic explosion of light to blind the entire neighbourhood. Didn't get that sadly but still a good video :-)
waiting for that giant arc lamp (the one in the foam box with the blast shield) to come out, i reacon motion activated local dimming would be better than turning them completely off, but that would require new LED lamps and some brains.,. wonder what this does to the base load shifting the energy companies do? Its not like they turn off a power station , they'd have to enable off-peak at these time to cater for the change. Photon, can you but a meter and scope in the outlet and messure the change in voltage/frequency when all the lighting load is removed from the supply?
Wonderful! It's always nice to see an SLI/H in action. Powys County Council started doing this round here several years ago. They turned off 2/3rds of the lights, but without any consultation. Needless to say, there was an uproar, and most of those turned off were converted to part-night. Powys used to be a uniform LPS county, but a few years ago they started to change over to HPS. Pretty much immediately, most were switched off, and are in the process of being removed and replaced with LED, which is substantially dimmer. The council's depots must have mountains of nearly-new HPS fittings and bulbs. Madness. If you want that 70w SON to stay on overnight, all you need do is change the part-night cell for an all-night one. Get a hard hat, hi-vis jacket and trousers, and a ladder. If anyone asks, just say the council's bucket van has a fault. In terms of crime prevention, lighting does have a part to play. Who says? The police. A few years ago, we were visited by the local crime prevention officer, and as well as recommending new locks, he suggested we install a 500w PIR at the back of the house. This I duly did, and at the front, I replaced the halogen PIR with a 70w MH in a GEC Z8896 (I'm a streetlight collector myself), which came on overnight. I then replaced it with Thorn Civic 1 with a 55w PLL fluorescent lamp. That was very good, until the electronics packed up after just over a year. It was a ball-ache replacing it, but I eventually put up a GEC Z8691 running 80w mercury. That's on part-night until my finances improve. Photos of the replacement here, with other photos of my outside lighting: www.flickr.com/photos/welsh_snapper/sets/72157631293802350 I'll share this video on the www.ukastle.co.uk/ forum. Richard
But the funniest stupidity of governments and money saving is when they turn off the streetlamps during the winter nights, but leaving them ON during daylight lit summer nights...
With the lights off the crime actually goes down. The criminals can't see without the lights, so they'd have to walk around with torches, that makes them stick out like a sore thumb. Also crime is generally higher during the day and not at night.
+blaser Much easier to vandalize cars and such when the lights are off and the cameras can't see the criminals. There's a reason Photon took action here.
This is true. More light INCREASES CRIME... not, decreases it. Chicago did the Chicago Alley Study. More light, increased crime. Chicago is the most light polluted city in the world. Chicago is the most violent city in the USA. (sad, but true). I still love Chicago... that is why I am passionate about helping to raise awareness and decrease light pollution, especially the blue-rich component of the bright white, blue rich lights... that municipalities are switching to around the world.
I used to have a lovely old sodium lamp outside my bedroom, they replaced it with a modern one with a led array that makes leafy shadows look like low res videogame shadows and I hate it.
Absolutely brilliant, my friend! I love LPS lamps, and this one takes the cake. I had the same thought when you showed the unpowered streetlamp.. "A LPS SOX lamp would rectify this nicely...". Got quite a good laugh when you showed the bedroom lamp as well. I use a 35W LPS lamp in the yard because the road commission deemed our road not busy enough to warrant street lighting about five years back. These bulbs and ballasts are terribly hard to find here across the pond though, especially since we don't use bayonet connectors.
And with the crazy taxes UK residents pay. WTH man? I heard that garbage pick up is now every 2 weeks in some parts and some places want to extend it every 3 weeks.Nice music choice, Beethoven Moonlight Sonata.
There are articles that the lights being off "reduces crime" but it really means reducing crime reports The council have played their tax payers like fools. The crime is there still.
I live in an rural area where my town council keep cutting everything and my street lights go out of night but god crime as risen since they were introduced my town doesn’t have a lot of LEDs street light and the rest has 1960s-2000s street lighting which is good but why not keep them on to stop people living in fear at night
illuminating info and story, I always thought that street lighting was only there to burn off the energy from power stations which essentially never turn off anyway where I live daylight crime is the real nasty one, it's easier to when there is light as people tend to be out of the home due to work
Street lights are meant to be a crime deterrent. In some areas it serves the opposite purpose, but most petty crimes would be committed in the darkness.
I knew a guy that was released from prison that was out on tag with a curfew he had to be in the house from 8 until 5pm I think. He said it was fine because he did burglaries in the daytime.
@@rich1051414 in this day and age with CCTV having infrared there isn't any need for CCTV to see using white light because CCTV can see clearly at night using infrared lamp technology. So crime isn't really a major effect where CCTV is installed if night vision capable
@@colinturner7363 The reason for darkness is not to avoid CCTV, but to avoid immediate witnesses. It is rare that CCTV is even monitored unless a crime happens that effects that business or residence directly. Even then, so much time has passed they will likely not be identified.
I love it. It actually gets dark at night now, and I don't feel any less safe for it. The only crimes that have ever affected me have all happened in daylight hours. We've had a few smash 'n grabs in our street over the years and none of them took place at night.
This is the work of the local Council, not the Government. My city has never done this in my lifetime and I sure hope they never do. Besides, I don't have the money to keep replacing my baseball bat. ;) I think they've just never heard of LED streetlamps. :P
My point being, if a city was in trouble should the Federal government help? No. They spend their money on more important stuff like slaughtering other human beings.
Love the way LPS lamps glow, they give off a beautiful yellowish Orange compared to the bright orange of HPS lamps. The neighborhood that my mom grew up in is still filled with old circa 1970’s LPS streetlights. Just imagine an entire street only lit by LPS lamps, feels like a dream.
In Norfolk they have been doing this for ova a year now ,but just before they decided to do it they changed the lamps ,there now starting to change them to LED :)
-"There is too much crime!" -"Errr... Let's ban guns!" -"There's even more crime!" -"Hmm... Let's turn off streetlights at night!" And I thought our government was stupid.
***** Oh so i'm a "filfthy leftist" now am I? Actually, the rates of violent crime has gone down drastically. There have been no shootings ever since as far as i'm aware. non-violent crime MAY have gone up, but i call coincidence there.
Emil Carr Well, who could have known that without guns it would be more difficult to shoot? There had been quite a rise in violent crime just after the gun bans, now the rates are slowly dropping to their pre-ban levels, but who knows what will happen to them with all these migrants flowing into the UK. If I were to choose where to live, I'd prefer a country where I can stand my ground, instead of having a duty to retreat.
I have to agree with the commenters below. I would love if this happened in my town. I have seen the sky with minumum light pollutuon and it was amazing. To see it every night would be a blessing. Crime may rise without the light, i havnt read any statistics or studies on this. Either way, i have a dog that barks like hell when someone even walks past the house and i am not above puting down whatever twisted individual decides to enter my home.
Justin Proctor I totally agree. How about even a 15% reduction in the brightness? People need to responsibility for their own property. How about a porch light?
Even a porch light causes pollution. 15% wouldnt let us see much further. One day a year isnt asking much. Not even a full day. Just 6 hours from 12 to 6 in the morning. Let us all gather on the street. Set up the BBQ and enjoy the twilight. Let us see the galaxies and dead supernovas that have allowed earth to inhabite our essense. OK....I may have had a tipple before this comment, but that does not dismiss the point of said comment :P
Answer some questions for me. First, where do i live ? How many people do i have walking past my house at night? Do i live in a council house in an estate? Or do i live in the country away from all other households. What size is my dog? How loud is her bark? Do i have any neigbours? Of course you cannot answer any of these questions because you know nothing about the situation. I live far away from other houses. My dog does bark yes, but only when drunkards walk past the house at 4 in the morning. Kicking tins of beer whilst they walk, some taking a piss in the garden. So heres a thought for you. Crawl out of your own arse and learn to see the world and people for what they are, not what you deem them to be.
I honestly don't care where you live and I don't really wish to know anything about you. Why would I care about the size of your dog or loud it barks, ??? I referred to people who have dogs which bark all night. If your's doesn't, big deal, I obviously wasn't referring to you.
The street lights on the A road down the way from me go out from midnight to 6AM because there's a cow field next to it. I can't really see how 24 hour lighting affects cows personally, not compared to getting shot in the head and served up on a sunday anyway.
I remember my road being lit by 80w mbf, not particularly bright, but gave a decent colour light output, lots of side roads in Cardiff were lit using 80 or 125 watt mbf. The main roads in Cardiff were mainly lit by 90w or 135w SOX, then some bright spark decided that everything had to be upgraded to SON, out went the lovely GEC lanterns and in came urbis. The main roads now cost more to light because SON is less efficient than the SOX they replaced. No doubt the council will go over to part night, and switch off the very same lights they spent millions on to 'improve' lighting levels! Madness? You bet!
This is by far my favorite video posted. It's the first video I've ever seen of your channel. Some how it keeps popping up in my watch it again and never stops. love it!
A couple of years ago, we had mercury vapor street lights which turned on at dusk and off at dawn. All well so far. But they began to shut them off at AM 12:00 and relit at AM 5:00 in order to save money. During that 5-hour time period, several parked cars ( including ours ) were broken into, and mostly car radios and steering wheel airbags were stolen. In one case, they stole my Dad's suitcase. Then they upgraded the street lights to LED and let them on all night. No parked cars ever fell victim to burglers since then.
Nice one photon, I'll be doing exactly the same when/if they switch the lights off here. That LPS lamp doesn't look like a SOX, is it one of the older types?
More and more people are using led lights to save money but we don’t see saving /the difference because they put the tariffs up so totally pointless. Ffs even street lights are being replaced for led and we are still getting shafted. Britain wake up. Please
what a load of BS, good work on putting your own up :D, I would do the same thing!, I keep my towing car on the street, illuminated by the street lights and IR Camera also on it. no light would make it a lot easier for the local bogans to go around breaking into cars and stealing other stuff.
I wish they'd turn them off around here. I hate that awful orange monochrome light. I have a motion activated 80W LED lamp that lights up outside my house so my cameras get a decent view of my car if anyone comes near it. Its a waste to keep lights blazing away all night for no reason.
Love the old LPS. I have an old 55 watt unit here, but no bulb for it. I changed all my outdoor lighting to HPS and LED. As to crime increasing, I have seen studies that show the opposite. Where it is dark the criminals can't see a bloody thing, and if they use flashlights, they stand out like a sore thumb. Cameras with IR emitters will see the criminals in the dark no problem.
Honestly, I think this is the wrong idea. You ask who pays for crime, but criminals need light too. Crime tends to goes down with less light, not up. Adding these lights only gives the illusion of security, while having the negative effect of light pollution. You should instead go outside and enjoy the fact that you can actually see the stars at night from inside the city.
could not agree with you more. Published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, a new study finds that street lights have no significant impact on safety. Researchers at two different colleges in London examined over 60 areas over the span of 14 years to see what kind of difference having lights made. In the end, they found no evidence that having bright lights, dim lights or no lights made any difference in helping to reduce automobile accidents or crime.
What reduces crime? White People. According to International Crime Stats, the most violent Nations on Earth are located in Africa and Central America. According to FBI Crime Stats, the most violent places within the USA are full of Africans and Central Americans. Biology is very real and very important. A blackbird can never create an Eagle's nest, just as a Blackman can never create an Asian or Caucasian civilization.
Electric lighting was invented within the last 150 years, mankind survived for 7 million years without it, go somewhere without lighting and wait about 15 minutes, your eyes are capable of seeing in starlight alone. Crime is not reduced with lighting.
Found the answer - Google "What is the effect of reduced street lighting on crime and road traffic injuries at night? A mixed-methods study." 2015 .... the conclusion? Nope. Crime did not go up.
I have dug all the other video's you have made but I have to disagree with you here regarding light pollution. - I live between the two cities of Manchester and Liverpool in the UK - therefore on two overlapping horizons I am blinded by an orange glow - to make matters worse a new neighbour moved in a year ago and he has one of the 1000 Watt floodlights that was switched on when he moved in and is still burning now - Day and night - My telescope is now an ornament - I do understand your concern over criminals but believe they are hampered by lack of light rather than the free provision of it. - Cheers for the excellent videos. Regards.
Oscar Wylder There appears to be at least some correlation between crime rates and streetlights. From what I've read it seems that lighting that's either insufficient or exceeding sufficient levels can both lead to an increase in crime. Then again calculating the effects things like this have on crime is a bit difficult due to the absolute insane amount of variables they need to account for. Just some food for thought :)
***** not really, only someone who really didn't know where they were going would need a torch. The moon is pretty bright for the streets once your eyes adjust
***** Most crimes happen without planning; they're crimes of opportunity. They see some old woman leave her door unlocked and bam... Criminals don't plan heists
***** Well, here in Colchester we have had two very bloody murders by an unknown person, or persons since the switch off. This caused a renewed interest in keeping the lights on. However, one murder took place at a time of night when the lights were ON, and one in broad DAYLIGHT. So the moral of the story is we should switch the lights off altogether? [EDIT - what I am intending here is that there is no connexion between the murders and the lights, and showing that I believe that the claim that there IS a link is absurd. I am not sure if my irony came across very clearly, hence this edit.] True, when someone trips up and breaks a leg, the hospital fees will outweigh any saving, but this then starts an interesting discussion on personal responsibility vs government. At this point, follow this to the logical conclusion and perhaps the government should come into all our homes and remove any safety hazards there.
John Bull I don't really follow your point. Responsibility upon injury is a completely different topic from feeling of security and crime levels. Crime levels don't increase with disabled street lights. That has been proven scientifically and no anecdote can prove otherwise. Responsibility is a whole leap of its own.
to stop people thinking you have gone to bed keep all your house lights on simple then you will see how much it costs. im sick of people complaining that thier turning lights off to save money id rather it be dark and see the stars than have no NHS
I'm running two outside lamps every night with LED bulbs, one is 5W, the other is 7W, total 12W for average 12h 365 days/year. With my current electricity prices irt costs me around 26zł (£5,5, €6 or $7) a year.
Up here in the Scottish Highlands the council had a trial period where certain areas switched off the street lighting at midnight. There was a marked increase in car crime. The trial was abandoned but not due to the rise in crime, BUT, that the electricity supply company said that if there was going to be less electricity consumption due to lights being off earlier then they would INCREASE the unit price thus negating any benefit!!! :/
I'm glad to see that you're back to posting some videos, Andy. I know that a lot of crazy people stole your ideas before with a lot of the things that you used to do at home...but even videos like this are pretty awesome.
The street lighting is high pressure sodium right?Looks like 150 watts. My area HPS is like 250 watts, but they shine light all over. Heck, half of the lighting around here is still mercury vapor. They get replaced with HPS when the ballast goes out, in 2016 MV bulbs get banned from sale here, so there will soon be much less MV around here. MV ballasts were banned in 2008 so any fixture on MV has been around quite a while, and man those things sure do last a long time. There are some real old ones around me. It's only recently LED has been replacing street lighting. It's weird though, LED is replacing streetlights in sections, not as old ones burn out. If a MV fixture burns out today, HPS goes in it's place, not LED. Only sections at a time get LED. I kinda like both HPS and LED. I like the 6,000k of LED but HPS is surprisingly efficient. Up to 140 lumens per watt, pretty impressive. LED was having a hard time competing for a while but the technology is coming around apparently. I like the color corrected MV (6,500k) too but they're horribly inefficient by today's standards. I put a new H39 MV ballast in an old area light of mine because I want one for myself before they're all gone lol. I got the ballast on ebay, I guess they're still for sale privately under new old stock.
***** yeah they're banned for either production or commercial sale, not sure which. Bottom line is since the 2008 ban, it is very hard to find replacement ballasts for them. Any mv fixture still working is free to stay there though. I have a feeling the city I live in had many on hand as the ban became active. So long after 08, mv fixtures were still repaired. Many old mv fixtures have been converted to hps too.
***** there are some mv around my area that are very bright, I don't know the wattage on them. I assumed most were 400 watts, so I don't know what the few very bright mv's are. There are a few really bright hps fixtures around too. Most are 250 but I know of one that lights up the area like the sun comparing to the ones around it. Looks like 600 watts but I'm not sure. Seems misplaced in the residential neighborhood its in.
Every since they changed to LED lights in Birmingham my home looks like blackpool illumination at night, I had to go out blackout curtains to be able to sleep fucking council..
I bet the birds and insects love the uncertainty of glaring bright lights that switch on and off unpredictably. It's as if someone made a plan to kill them all off, and it looks like an excellent one.
They should change to LED illumination. In Düsseldorf it works great. And they save 80% of electric bill they say... The LEDs are payed after 6 months.
LEDs are actually much less efficient then a sodium vapor lamp. Though an LED light with the right optics can be more directional which means you could get away with less lumens so total power may still be less but it would require new fixtures. But they last longer if quality parts are used so replacement costs should be lower.
I'm a sparky from Milwaukee, Wisconsin,USA and work in the city's street lighting department.. We have around 100,000 luminaries mostly high pressure sodium with groups of merc vapors. We utilize series circuits with a conversion going on to standard multiple circuits.. WE LOVE YOUR SITE! Great job and keep up the fantastic work! We love to blow shit up! Sometimes on purpose...
Rinoa Super-Genius Nice to see an American my weight for a change. I'm 24 and male though. Either way, British people seem to think that every American weighs 260lbs and sits on our asses all day. :/
To cheap to invest in LED lights. My city did, and in two years they will have payed for them self's. I would go to the mayors street with a bee bee gun and shoot out all the street lights as i am sure they are on.
Thing is, low pressure sodium lamps are even more efficient than LEDs. They still take power to run, and that power adds up when you're lighting a city. IMHO, a better solution is to both slightly reduce the light level, and (I know I'm gonna get flack for this) hike city/property taxes just a hair- nothing noticeable or painful, just enough to keep the lights on.
Richard Smith Mercury Vapor lamps are still popular where I live, one of the larger streets is lit with mostly 400w MV lamps. as far as I know, they only replace them when they break, they wused to replace them with HPS but now i'm starting to see LED in some places.
In about 1980 I tested some of the earliest "midnight off" switches for street lamps which came back on a 6am. At that time they were never intended for town streets but sections of road on the outskirts and some sections of motorways. I can assure you the original designers would have been very disappointed at what they would have considered, a gross misuse of their idea and development.
In Basingstoke where I live, the newer white street lights dim in the early hours of the morning. It does make everything look a bit eerie, but produces enough light to see what's going on.
LPS is so underrated. Who cares if its monochromatic. That's a good thing. Low light pollution, easily filterable.. I went out of my way here to get an LPS luminaire for my house here. 18w lights up the whole place. Was nearly impossible to find. Why they went out in the 70s, who knows. Arc lamps in general will likely be a memory in the next 10 years. Keeping a stock of MV, SBMV, LPS and HPS setups just for nostalgia. :)
1:23 - One of the funniest P.I. moments ever! A shame it had to come under such unfortunate circumstances. I like the insulators on your front pedestals too.
Here's my solution: When the street lights go out, it becomes "Weapons free" and you can kill any burglar or violent criminal if he's doing it during those dark hours, with no consequences for the person who took out the trash.
Considering it's the UK the police probably don't investigate when any of the locals go missing or get stabbed to death, but they'd probably put a full investigation team in if an immigrant trying to steal your car incidentally fell on a bed of knives.
I live in UK and I hate living here, I go to bed at 6:00am when they are on again, this gave me insomnia and I need to leave before I get Vitamin D deficiency due to sleeping most of the day and up all night.
Same here North London, lights are off at midnight ! We might as well dig up all the street lights across the country and ebay the lot, as there is no point in having unused street lights !
I wish they did that in my city, would be nice to see some stars from time to time. Besides, who needs light as a deterrent when you have the equipment to electrify your entire property lol
Ever since your original channel I've been knee deep in what you talk about. You've inadvertently taught me how resistors and rectifiers work an I'm on my way studying and the like to become an electrical engineer. I don't car if it's just construction but you are one of my heroes photon. It's like reverse engineering you teach us so much of what could go wrong if we did too much. I'd pour you cider. You're the best.
Great video, Do your rates go down too. Whoever came up with that idea should gets its ass kicked. Nice to see that LPS in action. Love to get hold of one of those lamps one day. NZ is all HPS. Great those blue LED's in your gate marker insulators.
I didn't even know know these things were controlled, thought they were on a timer. my lights around my area have been recently upgraded to the more high tech lamps and they stay on all night long
Im not from the UK but it seems that this kind of policy could lead to a point where illumination at night will stop being public and people will have to light their own street, like a condominium. Don't need to be a politic either to understand that crime will increase with that measure.
Andy... You could go one step further here friend... Get one of those massive arc lights you have, and stick it pointing upwards near the end of a 100ft pole, then just above the light fit a nice big reflector shaped like this 'V'. Should light up the neighborhood real good and make the authorities & government look like the useless festering piles of sewage they really are! Great vid mate as always.
They trailed turning them off down here in the SW around a year ago. We're quite lucky here and don't get much crime; when the lights were off it was even better because no one could see outside, so they all stayed in. They've decided to turn them down to ¼ brightness after 11pm now. Hardly noticeable but must save a tonne of energy!
But light pollution is serious problem. It harms people's health, same for animals. Too much light during the night is unnatural for both humans and animals. And outdoor lighting is huge waster of energy, usually those lights have really low energy efficiency, if they are not LEDs. Most energy is wasted as it warms the air. Also, most lamps are poorly designed and they blast that light every direction. There is no reason to light the sky. That is also the reason why most people on Earth have detached from real night sky. People do not recognize the stars, constellations, planets, nebulaes and so on. Heck, in largest cities people have never seen any stars except the Sun. It's also problem for astronomers because there is light pollution everywhere, it goes surprisingly far. In Australia alone, it costs A$210 million to run the public lights a year. They use 1,035 GWh of electricity and cause 1.15 million tonnes of CO2 emissions.
thebel89 I'm not sure how it causes harm to humans like myself, a lot of light at night is unnatural but in my area we sleep in houses. With blinds.Yeah some street lighting is pretty inefficient, Mercury vapor lighting is pretty common in my area but it's being completely phased out by next year, nothing will be purchasable anymore. Only like 40 to 50 lumens per watt which is horrible. The rest is heat.The most common is high pressure sodium, it's what lights 3/4 of my area and is actually very efficient and has a lot less light pollution than mercury vapor just due to the few areas of the spectrum it produces. It can get up to 140 lumens per watt; very efficient. But you get enough of them, and the whole sky has a yellow glow. Years ago when most of the lighting was mercury vapor, it wasn't so yellow. LED was less efficient than high pressure sodium for street lighting up until about 5 years ago, but it's still not much better today. Most led lighting for domestic outdoor use is much less efficient than the older high pressure sodium. LED sure does put off some heat, the whole body of those LED street lights are just large heatsinks. They're not as efficient as people think. Hardly better than HPS.That low pressure sodium lamp Photonicinduction put on his house is hands down more efficient than LED lighting. It also produces less light pollution naturally as it's monochromic. But it may not put all of the light on the ground, that's due to the housing, not the light source.I'm not disagreeing that light pollution or energy conserving aren't issues, but what we use today and even 10 years ago is pretty efficient.
TheGamerWithMore my streetlights all have their own photocells and turn on individually. The sun rises and falls at a different time every day so a timer would have to be completely thought out
It was very artistic ***** :) I was expecting you to rant, but instead I was greeted with soothing tunes. Ah well I love your solution and given your power setup it prob doesn't do anything to your power bills
Would a 100 watt led be more efficient then a 200 watt lps? I hear stories of those lps lamps and tossing them into wet dumpsters they kinda go boom from the sodium-water reaction. Any truth behind that?
The enormous increase in street and road lighting in the last 30 years has all but destroyed night in many areas. Light pollution is a major problem all over the country. At last some people are having the sense to turn off or dim lighting when it is no longer reasonably needed, as used to be the case many years ago. There is no need to light main roads between towns (cars have headlights for that purpose) and it is a great fallacy that no lighting means more crime. In fact, the opposite is true. If morons intent on crime can't see what they are doing, they will go elsewhere or use torches, making them visible to others and more easily detected. There are numerous instances where new lighting has been installed and within a week everywhere is covered with graffitti. When I was young, there were gaslamps in most of the town. They gave a sufficient light to see where to walk. They were all that was needed in residental areas. When low-pressure Na lights were used, although the light level increased many times (unneccessarily), the monochromatic light caused little effect in the sky. But high-pressure sodium lights are the most misused invention ever. They give light all over the spectrum and are usually far too bright for the need, leaving an orange glow across the sky. To make it worse, most modern fittings are pig ugly, utilitarian things that detract from the appearance of the area even by day. There are still countless miles of roads lit up like a football pitch all night, with no-one there. That is plain stupid and a massive waste of energy. So, GOOD! at last some people are realising that the use of outdoor night lighting has gone out of all proportion to the actual need.
Couldn't deliver the message any better. Lighting at night has most definitely destroyed the night sky, its especially sad when if you want to see like the Milky Way you have to go to somewhere rural and often especially depending where you live (Europe is basically a mess, East Coast USA is a mess) that rural spot can be a couple hours. Good message you gave. :)
Crime rates in totally unlit areas are essentially zero. The criminals need to see, and carrying a torch is a bit of a giveaway. And criminals just love those IR activated floodlights that let them see what they are doing as they break open your front door. And oh my, the stars. It is so great to see the stars again. I wish they would do this all over the country.
They've always turned off the streetlights at night on the Isle of Man, and used to do it in many parts of the UK too. When they switched to all-night lighting in parts of the UK the crime rate went UP as it was easier for crims to find their way about.
No if its well lit it makes the criminals more visible and easier to see also it makes them nervous if they are walking to a house that they are going to rob
Dark streets reduces crime reports, which is what the council wants.
Unlit streets may reduce burgularies, but drug dealing and homicides would go up, my area is hell with no lights people usually goes missing and property gets damage by chavs and no one knows or reports it because they can't see it. that's how it "reduces crime".
But if the streetlights being off REALLY "reduces crime", why not shut them all off around banks and the federal buildings.
@Mr MEMé if it is dark you can get ir ( infra red) cams too
@Mr MEMé infrared????
Makes as much sense as firing half the police force to save money.
TAOFLEDERMAUS holy shit balls, you were a fan of photon? Please find out if he's still alive for us? Last we knew he married an Indian girl so he could be in a "chicken" korma right now!
hahaha the police are criminals and the way they produce money is off of victimless crimes basically turning citizens into victims
TAOFLEDERMAUS we honestly should get rid of half the police because America is turning into a police/nanny state
Policy officers are a useless bunch of pricks. Fire all of them.
They are purposely ruining Britain outside of the city of London.
That's crazy!! In America the bars and clubs let out at 2am!! Streetlights are on all night, except for ones that have the copper stolen...
Thats the thing.
Some places kick out at 3 or 4am here.
All street lights off just so they can save a couple of quid
Lol,copper thrives, bad around Memphis here, but interesting to see the U.K is well protected with the same police cameras, no privacy, even inside your home anymore..
@@user-ef4er8xk5j No privacy inside your own arshole if these Chinese covid tests roll out
@@jshaw4757 fUCK! I hadn't heard about those, something is wrong with this whole covid thing, I mean when they have to bribe people with a chance to win a new car just for getting a shot, something is fucking wrong, and everyone is asleep at the wheel, they gave expired shots to people here in town, how the fuck is a new vaccine expired already? Turns out it expired a couple of years ago, and this shit was in the local media.. Good luck to everyone!
that bedside lamp... priceless!!
Oooooooh commodore
@Chris Murphy Orange is also a better colour for fog at night , like photonic , i test lamps as well , White light breaks up easily in fog and reflect so much that it is hard to see whats in front of you ( the wall of light ) its the colour bleu what causes so much reflection because it is a higher frequenty light , filter the colour bleu out whit and you get yellow , whit a yellow lamp you can see the road insted of the fog .
@@Smellslikenarcspirit the old french cars all had yellow lights...they knew👍
Easy, just attach lights to the criminals.
I'd create a law that requires all criminals to wear hiugh visibility jackets - Problem solved!
mibars They doesn't solve the problem... gotta think bigger kid.
tizoro3 Okay, how about another law that would make you obliged to shout the name of the crime you are currently commiting? Or maybe a one that orders a criminal to go to the police station after criminal act?
mibars If they're breaking the law in the first place why would they follow these laws?
tizoro3 Just tell me one thing: Are you being serious asking me this question? :)
All over Kent !
How are you chaps anyway??
chargrilledcharlie
If 1,500 foreigners arrived at England's shore each day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, 50 years ago, there would be a declaration of war. But now that cultural-marxists are in charge, culture and homelands don't matter any more and we should leave our doors unlocked because everyone has a right to enter our homes if they so desire. Who are we to say our homes are OUR homes? That's just bigoted and racist and xenophobic.
Wow, the government can be so cheap. They can't pay for 35 Watts? Shit, that wouldn't even impact an average persons energy bill.
Wow. So what they are saying is, it is cheaper to deal with crimes committed due to the lights being out than to leave them on? That is quite the greedy and cold-hearted decision...
is this in Sussex as well
***** Why not use a monster 7500 lumen 100W $10 led light?!
Only in the UK- they ban knives to reduce crime but then they TURN OFF THE LIGHTS IN THE STREETS. What a joke!
Knife ban? This is bullshit.
They really banned knives and you need to be 18 or older to buy a kitchen knife.
BrainSeepsOut That is not a "Knife ban" I live in the UK ,I should know!
BrainSeepsOut its been shown many time that a reduction in un-necessary lighting reduces crime levels. After all, constant street lighting only came into this country in the last 60 or so years. Where were the masses of crime then?
cravenjooooooooooooo There is a ban on certain kinds of knives, such as flick knives and any assisted (gravity, spring, or otherwise) release knives. Knives above a certain length cannot be carried in public unless it’s for transport or some special exceptions. You may live in the UK, but I live in the UK and know how to google. Magic.
They might mistaken your house for a brothel for the first 2 minutes when you turn the sodium lamp on
Gummel they might think Roxanne lived there.
Ben Jared: Who?
Robert Sydes it’s a reference to the song Roxanne by the band The Police, I suggest you listen to it.
Lol
I can't be the only one who was laughing through the first half waiting for some sort of gigantic explosion of light to blind the entire neighbourhood. Didn't get that sadly but still a good video :-)
waiting for that giant arc lamp (the one in the foam box with the blast shield) to come out, i reacon motion activated local dimming would be better than turning them completely off, but that would require new LED lamps and some brains.,.
wonder what this does to the base load shifting the energy companies do? Its not like they turn off a power station , they'd have to enable off-peak at these time to cater for the change.
Photon, can you but a meter and scope in the outlet and messure the change in voltage/frequency when all the lighting load is removed from the supply?
Anyone still waiting for Andy to come back after December 2019?
May 2021, still waiting.
I saw a listing that he had put on eBay, In the description he said he was coming back on UA-cam soon
@@Naukko-mh7cf June and he's back
he died in 2020 to covid
:)
Wonderful! It's always nice to see an SLI/H in action. Powys County Council started doing this round here several years ago. They turned off 2/3rds of the lights, but without any consultation. Needless to say, there was an uproar, and most of those turned off were converted to part-night. Powys used to be a uniform LPS county, but a few years ago they started to change over to HPS. Pretty much immediately, most were switched off, and are in the process of being removed and replaced with LED, which is substantially dimmer. The council's depots must have mountains of nearly-new HPS fittings and bulbs. Madness.
If you want that 70w SON to stay on overnight, all you need do is change the part-night cell for an all-night one. Get a hard hat, hi-vis jacket and trousers, and a ladder. If anyone asks, just say the council's bucket van has a fault.
In terms of crime prevention, lighting does have a part to play. Who says? The police. A few years ago, we were visited by the local crime prevention officer, and as well as recommending new locks, he suggested we install a 500w PIR at the back of the house. This I duly did, and at the front, I replaced the halogen PIR with a 70w MH in a GEC Z8896 (I'm a streetlight collector myself), which came on overnight. I then replaced it with Thorn Civic 1 with a 55w PLL fluorescent lamp. That was very good, until the electronics packed up after just over a year. It was a ball-ache replacing it, but I eventually put up a GEC Z8691 running 80w mercury. That's on part-night until my finances improve.
Photos of the replacement here, with other photos of my outside lighting:
www.flickr.com/photos/welsh_snapper/sets/72157631293802350
I'll share this video on the www.ukastle.co.uk/ forum.
Richard
I thought you would overload your grid
*69 likes*
Neighborhood pop.
Nah, only his power bill would have gone up.
Transformer go boom LOL
I could understand why turning lights off in Australia would be safe because they have a VERY low crime rate but here in England bad idea
+NeXTSTORMING they do it in Seddon, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
My town has the highest burglary rate in the whole of victoria :(( I have a 2kw floodlamp on a sensor circuit to scare anyone off if they get close
But the funniest stupidity of governments and money saving is when they turn off the streetlamps during the winter nights, but leaving them ON during daylight lit summer nights...
With the lights off the crime actually goes down. The criminals can't see without the lights, so they'd have to walk around with torches, that makes them stick out like a sore thumb.
Also crime is generally higher during the day and not at night.
+blaser Much easier to vandalize cars and such when the lights are off and the cameras can't see the criminals. There's a reason Photon took action here.
+Kamnible ir cams can
This is true. More light INCREASES CRIME... not, decreases it. Chicago did the Chicago Alley Study. More light, increased crime. Chicago is the most light polluted city in the world. Chicago is the most violent city in the USA. (sad, but true). I still love Chicago... that is why I am passionate about helping to raise awareness and decrease light pollution, especially the blue-rich component of the bright white, blue rich lights... that municipalities are switching to around the world.
Many less shadows for criminals to hide in when there aren't any
When you said torches I literally thought actual sticks on fire for a second, until I remembered in the UK, torches are flashlights.
How are councils even billed for streetlight leccy bills? Since I've seen/heard the lamps use unmetered supplies. (no meters in the columns.)
i love the ceramic insulators as decorative tops for those pedestals at the front gate.
Was a really nice touch haha
Good job. Nothing beats a good old LPS lamp.
Aint fucking havin' it,wheres me fuckin' hammer
When do we get our reduction in council tax then?.......
That is ridiculous. It's not a third world country to take such regressive measures to save money.
I used to have a lovely old sodium lamp outside my bedroom, they replaced it with a modern one with a led array that makes leafy shadows look like low res videogame shadows and I hate it.
Absolutely brilliant, my friend! I love LPS lamps, and this one takes the cake. I had the same thought when you showed the unpowered streetlamp.. "A LPS SOX lamp would rectify this nicely...". Got quite a good laugh when you showed the bedroom lamp as well. I use a 35W LPS lamp in the yard because the road commission deemed our road not busy enough to warrant street lighting about five years back. These bulbs and ballasts are terribly hard to find here across the pond though, especially since we don't use bayonet connectors.
And with the crazy taxes UK residents pay. WTH man? I heard that garbage pick up is now every 2 weeks in some parts and some places want to extend it every 3 weeks.Nice music choice, Beethoven Moonlight Sonata.
There are articles that the lights being off "reduces crime" but it really means reducing crime reports The council have played their tax payers like fools. The crime is there still.
Its so they can continue to use Windows XP for another few years..
I just laughed like 2mins on this comment! :D
lmfao' wins xp was a classic o.s in its day ;-)
Sam Gates
It makes plenty of sense.. Unlike what ever you were just trying to say!
I live in an rural area where my town council keep cutting everything and my street lights go out of night but god crime as risen since they were introduced my town doesn’t have a lot of LEDs street light and the rest has 1960s-2000s street lighting which is good but why not keep them on to stop people living in fear at night
illuminating info and story, I always thought that street lighting was only there to burn off the energy from power stations which essentially never turn off
anyway where I live daylight crime is the real nasty one, it's easier to when there is light as people tend to be out of the home due to work
Street lights are meant to be a crime deterrent. In some areas it serves the opposite purpose, but most petty crimes would be committed in the darkness.
I knew a guy that was released from prison that was out on tag with a curfew he had to be in the house from 8 until 5pm I think. He said it was fine because he did burglaries in the daytime.
@@rich1051414 in this day and age with CCTV having infrared there isn't any need for CCTV to see using white light because CCTV can see clearly at night using infrared lamp technology. So crime isn't really a major effect where CCTV is installed if night vision capable
@@colinturner7363 The reason for darkness is not to avoid CCTV, but to avoid immediate witnesses. It is rare that CCTV is even monitored unless a crime happens that effects that business or residence directly. Even then, so much time has passed they will likely not be identified.
@@rich1051414 pretty hard to see in total darkness
I love it. It actually gets dark at night now, and I don't feel any less safe for it. The only crimes that have ever affected me have all happened in daylight hours. We've had a few smash 'n grabs in our street over the years and none of them took place at night.
I think it is totally bizarre that your government needs to shut down the lights at night to save money, but have the money to go to fight in wars.
never has a truer word been spoken (or written)
they should pass a law that the electric companies have to power every fourth streetlight for free!! WOWWW!!!
This is the work of the local Council, not the Government. My city has never done this in my lifetime and I sure hope they never do. Besides, I don't have the money to keep replacing my baseball bat. ;)
I think they've just never heard of LED streetlamps. :P
My point being, if a city was in trouble should the Federal government help? No. They spend their money on more important stuff like slaughtering other human beings.
too bloody true mate. i totally agree ;)
Love the way LPS lamps glow, they give off a beautiful yellowish Orange compared to the bright orange of HPS lamps. The neighborhood that my mom grew up in is still filled with old circa 1970’s LPS streetlights. Just imagine an entire street only lit by LPS lamps, feels like a dream.
In Norfolk they have been doing this for ova a year now ,but just before they decided to do it they changed the lamps ,there now starting to change them to LED :)
-"There is too much crime!"
-"Errr... Let's ban guns!"
-"There's even more crime!"
-"Hmm... Let's turn off streetlights at night!"
And I thought our government was stupid.
+TheDaniel366Cobra Banning guns got rid of crime, not made it
+Emil Carr in leftists' dreams, maybe. In real life, no.
*****
Oh so i'm a "filfthy leftist" now am I? Actually, the rates of violent crime has gone down drastically. There have been no shootings ever since as far as i'm aware. non-violent crime MAY have gone up, but i call coincidence there.
Emil Carr Well, who could have known that without guns it would be more difficult to shoot?
There had been quite a rise in violent crime just after the gun bans, now the rates are slowly dropping to their pre-ban levels, but who knows what will happen to them with all these migrants flowing into the UK.
If I were to choose where to live, I'd prefer a country where I can stand my ground, instead of having a duty to retreat.
You will never get rid of violent crime, but banning guns did cause homicides to drop dramatically which is really the point.
I have to agree with the commenters below. I would love if this happened in my town. I have seen the sky with minumum light pollutuon and it was amazing. To see it every night would be a blessing. Crime may rise without the light, i havnt read any statistics or studies on this. Either way, i have a dog that barks like hell when someone even walks past the house and i am not above puting down whatever twisted individual decides to enter my home.
Justin Proctor criminals need light too
Justin Proctor I totally agree. How about even a 15% reduction in the brightness? People need to responsibility for their own property. How about a porch light?
Even a porch light causes pollution. 15% wouldnt let us see much further. One day a year isnt asking much. Not even a full day. Just 6 hours from 12 to 6 in the morning. Let us all gather on the street. Set up the BBQ and enjoy the twilight. Let us see the galaxies and dead supernovas that have allowed earth to inhabite our essense. OK....I may have had a tipple before this comment, but that does not dismiss the point of said comment :P
Answer some questions for me. First, where do i live ? How many people do i have walking past my house at night? Do i live in a council house in an estate? Or do i live in the country away from all other households. What size is my dog? How loud is her bark? Do i have any neigbours?
Of course you cannot answer any of these questions because you know nothing about the situation. I live far away from other houses. My dog does bark yes, but only when drunkards walk past the house at 4 in the morning. Kicking tins of beer whilst they walk, some taking a piss in the garden.
So heres a thought for you. Crawl out of your own arse and learn to see the world and people for what they are, not what you deem them to be.
I honestly don't care where you live and I don't really wish to know anything about you. Why would I care about the size of your dog or loud it barks, ??? I referred to people who have dogs which bark all night. If your's doesn't, big deal, I obviously wasn't referring to you.
The street lights on the A road down the way from me go out from midnight to 6AM because there's a cow field next to it. I can't really see how 24 hour lighting affects cows personally, not compared to getting shot in the head and served up on a sunday anyway.
I remember my road being lit by 80w mbf, not particularly bright, but gave a decent colour light output, lots of side roads in Cardiff were lit using 80 or 125 watt mbf. The main roads in Cardiff were mainly lit by 90w or 135w SOX, then some bright spark decided that everything had to be upgraded to SON, out went the lovely GEC lanterns and in came urbis. The main roads now cost more to light because SON is less efficient than the SOX they replaced. No doubt the council will go over to part night, and switch off the very same lights they spent millions on to 'improve' lighting levels! Madness? You bet!
This is by far my favorite video posted. It's the first video I've ever seen of your channel. Some how it keeps popping up in my watch it again and never stops. love it!
Its much nicer without the glare of a streetlamp, you can see the stars.
I Would rather not have any street lamps at all.
Light pollution is an issue also, especially in rural locales, just talk to any astronomer....
A couple of years ago, we had mercury vapor street lights which turned on at dusk and off at dawn. All well so far. But they began to shut them off at AM 12:00 and relit at AM 5:00 in order to save money. During that 5-hour time period, several parked cars ( including ours ) were broken into, and mostly car radios and steering wheel airbags were stolen. In one case, they stole my Dad's suitcase.
Then they upgraded the street lights to LED and let them on all night. No parked cars ever fell victim to burglers since then.
decorative ceramic insulators at the gate... this man truly knows his game
Jantus1000 but what is the glowing purple light coming from them??
Light polluters! - and maybe your neighbours don't wan the intrusive glow into their rooms... the street light projects downwards...
Nice one photon, I'll be doing exactly the same when/if they switch the lights off here. That LPS lamp doesn't look like a SOX, is it one of the older types?
More and more people are using led lights to save money but we don’t see saving /the difference because they put the tariffs up so totally pointless. Ffs even street lights are being replaced for led and we are still getting shafted. Britain wake up. Please
what a load of BS, good work on putting your own up :D, I would do the same thing!, I keep my towing car on the street, illuminated by the street lights and IR Camera also on it. no light would make it a lot easier for the local bogans to go around breaking into cars and stealing other stuff.
@Frank Heuvelman 51...th?
@Frank Heuvelman are you looking for "51st"?
with apex in melbourne it would be a good idea to leave you own lights on, you just have to make sure the council doesn't know ;)
Haha. Rest easy...
well, im living in Germany. and weve got led Street lights in our small village since 20011
*2011
+DIY guy thats a pretty long time in a future, somethin gto look forward to I guess :P
+Emil Carr 😅😅😅
I thought 20011 would have some better lighting technology :/
I wish they'd turn them off around here. I hate that awful orange monochrome light. I have a motion activated 80W LED lamp that lights up outside my house so my cameras get a decent view of my car if anyone comes near it. Its a waste to keep lights blazing away all night for no reason.
Love the old LPS. I have an old 55 watt unit here, but no bulb for it. I changed all my outdoor lighting to HPS and LED.
As to crime increasing, I have seen studies that show the opposite. Where it is dark the criminals can't see a bloody thing, and if they use flashlights, they stand out like a sore thumb. Cameras with IR emitters will see the criminals in the dark no problem.
Honestly, I think this is the wrong idea. You ask who pays for crime, but criminals need light too. Crime tends to goes down with less light, not up. Adding these lights only gives the illusion of security, while having the negative effect of light pollution. You should instead go outside and enjoy the fact that you can actually see the stars at night from inside the city.
could not agree with you more.
Published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, a new study finds that street lights have no significant impact on safety. Researchers at two different colleges in London examined over 60 areas over the span of 14 years to see what kind of difference having lights made. In the end, they found no evidence that having bright lights, dim lights or no lights made any difference in helping to reduce automobile accidents or crime.
+Amra Flashlights.
What reduces crime? White People.
According to International Crime Stats, the most violent Nations on Earth are located in Africa and Central America.
According to FBI Crime Stats, the most violent places within the USA are full of Africans and Central Americans.
Biology is very real and very important. A blackbird can never create an Eagle's nest, just as a Blackman can never create an Asian or Caucasian civilization.
statistically true, racist or not.
+Richard Harrold
Why don't you emigrate to africa if you love them so much?
1AM? it turns off at 12AM for me
Electric lighting was invented within the last 150 years, mankind survived for 7 million years without it, go somewhere without lighting and wait about 15 minutes, your eyes are capable of seeing in starlight alone. Crime is not reduced with lighting.
Found the answer - Google "What is the effect of reduced street lighting on crime and road traffic injuries at night? A mixed-methods study." 2015 .... the conclusion? Nope. Crime did not go up.
I have dug all the other video's you have made but I have to disagree with you here regarding light pollution. - I live between the two cities of Manchester and Liverpool in the UK - therefore on two overlapping horizons I am blinded by an orange glow - to make matters worse a new neighbour moved in a year ago and he has one of the 1000 Watt floodlights that was switched on when he moved in and is still burning now - Day and night - My telescope is now an ornament - I do understand your concern over criminals but believe they are hampered by lack of light rather than the free provision of it. - Cheers for the excellent videos. Regards.
Oscar Wylder There appears to be at least some correlation between crime rates and streetlights. From what I've read it seems that lighting that's either insufficient or exceeding sufficient levels can both lead to an increase in crime. Then again calculating the effects things like this have on crime is a bit difficult due to the absolute insane amount of variables they need to account for.
Just some food for thought :)
@KingMacintosh " It doesn't take much power or energy." nice how you state this as a fact ;)
Yeah atleast they’re not bright white 6000k LED. We need to make the 3000 and under a law
Crime does not go up, if no one can see, people use torches and therefore anyone with a torch after 1am is suspect
*****
not really, only someone who really didn't know where they were going would need a torch. The moon is pretty bright for the streets once your eyes adjust
*****
Most crimes happen without planning; they're crimes of opportunity. They see some old woman leave her door unlocked and bam... Criminals don't plan heists
***** it's already been proven crime doesn't increase when street lights are shut off, there's no point arguing in the opposite direction
***** Well, here in Colchester we have had two very bloody murders by an unknown person, or persons since the switch off. This caused a renewed interest in keeping the lights on. However, one murder took place at a time of night when the lights were ON, and one in broad DAYLIGHT. So the moral of the story is we should switch the lights off altogether? [EDIT - what I am intending here is that there is no connexion between the murders and the lights, and showing that I believe that the claim that there IS a link is absurd. I am not sure if my irony came across very clearly, hence this edit.]
True, when someone trips up and breaks a leg, the hospital fees will outweigh any saving, but this then starts an interesting discussion on personal responsibility vs government. At this point, follow this to the logical conclusion and perhaps the government should come into all our homes and remove any safety hazards there.
John Bull I don't really follow your point. Responsibility upon injury is a completely different topic from feeling of security and crime levels.
Crime levels don't increase with disabled street lights. That has been proven scientifically and no anecdote can prove otherwise. Responsibility is a whole leap of its own.
to stop people thinking you have gone to bed keep all your house lights on simple then you will see how much it costs. im sick of people complaining that thier turning lights off to save money id rather it be dark and see the stars than have no NHS
Different tax pays for the NHS you spacker.
Stop being scared of the dark
Explain that last bit?
nhs is a joke lol
I'm running two outside lamps every night with LED bulbs, one is 5W, the other is 7W, total 12W for average 12h 365 days/year. With my current electricity prices irt costs me around 26zł (£5,5, €6 or $7) a year.
If the lights went off at 1am when I was a teenager there would've been fuckin hell to pay.
UK tries to save money by shutting off street lights, but then, mr. photon woke up. All the trouble was for nothing.
Are they still shutting the lights off over there?
Probably not with the new LED street lights.
"Who lays for crime?" That's easy: You and I do whilst the bureaucrats sleep comfortably in their big homes with armed security men outside.
..and with plenty of security lighting!
Up here in the Scottish Highlands the council had a trial period where certain areas switched off the street lighting at midnight.
There was a marked increase in car crime.
The trial was abandoned but not due to the rise in crime, BUT, that the electricity supply company said that if there was going to be less electricity consumption due to lights being off earlier then they would INCREASE the unit price thus negating any benefit!!! :/
I'm glad to see that you're back to posting some videos, Andy. I know that a lot of crazy people stole your ideas before with a lot of the things that you used to do at home...but even videos like this are pretty awesome.
The street lighting is high pressure sodium right?Looks like 150 watts. My area HPS is like 250 watts, but they shine light all over. Heck, half of the lighting around here is still mercury vapor. They get replaced with HPS when the ballast goes out, in 2016 MV bulbs get banned from sale here, so there will soon be much less MV around here. MV ballasts were banned in 2008 so any fixture on MV has been around quite a while, and man those things sure do last a long time. There are some real old ones around me. It's only recently LED has been replacing street lighting. It's weird though, LED is replacing streetlights in sections, not as old ones burn out. If a MV fixture burns out today, HPS goes in it's place, not LED. Only sections at a time get LED. I kinda like both HPS and LED. I like the 6,000k of LED but HPS is surprisingly efficient. Up to 140 lumens per watt, pretty impressive. LED was having a hard time competing for a while but the technology is coming around apparently. I like the color corrected MV (6,500k) too but they're horribly inefficient by today's standards. I put a new H39 MV ballast in an old area light of mine because I want one for myself before they're all gone lol. I got the ballast on ebay, I guess they're still for sale privately under new old stock.
***** yeah they're banned for either production or commercial sale, not sure which. Bottom line is since the 2008 ban, it is very hard to find replacement ballasts for them. Any mv fixture still working is free to stay there though. I have a feeling the city I live in had many on hand as the ban became active. So long after 08, mv fixtures were still repaired. Many old mv fixtures have been converted to hps too.
***** there are some mv around my area that are very bright, I don't know the wattage on them. I assumed most were 400 watts, so I don't know what the few very bright mv's are. There are a few really bright hps fixtures around too. Most are 250 but I know of one that lights up the area like the sun comparing to the ones around it. Looks like 600 watts but I'm not sure. Seems misplaced in the residential neighborhood its in.
Every since they changed to LED lights in Birmingham my home looks like blackpool illumination at night, I had to go out blackout curtains to be able to sleep fucking council..
I bet the birds and insects love the uncertainty of glaring bright lights that switch on and off unpredictably. It's as if someone made a plan to kill them all off, and it looks like an excellent one.
Lovely editing and choice of music by the way. 21 thumbs down? Just raise a finger :)
How about this one? 🖕🏼
What is that song anyway?
Midwest Northern RailRoad the Moonlight Sonata by Beathoven
in new jersey the lights shut off for an hour of mid night than turn back on at 2:00am
wierd stuff man
They should change to LED illumination. In Düsseldorf it works great. And they save 80% of electric bill they say... The LEDs are payed after 6 months.
OR you could dimm them when noone is around to 25%. o:
Okay. But they should use >1 MHz PWM cycle. Becuase in the KHz range, eco pleople will complain that they get headaches.
That would be destroy the color spectrum.
LEDs are actually much less efficient then a sodium vapor lamp.
Though an LED light with the right optics can be more directional which means you could get away with less lumens so total power may still be less but it would require new fixtures.
But they last longer if quality parts are used so replacement costs should be lower.
Are you shure? I have 122 lm/watts LED tubes, here.
I'm a sparky from Milwaukee, Wisconsin,USA and work in the city's street lighting department.. We have around 100,000 luminaries mostly high pressure sodium with groups of merc vapors. We utilize series circuits with a conversion going on to standard multiple circuits..
WE LOVE YOUR SITE!
Great job and keep up the fantastic work!
We love to blow shit up!
Sometimes on purpose...
hey thanks for telling me about this, ima go over to the UK and steal a bunch of crap now. ;P
lol ;-) classic
Im uk and im waiting in my den to eat u ):D
AndrewDoesGames Lotsoffun well i'm not an average american, i'm only 122lb (55kg) so not much to eat.
Rinoa Super-Genius
Nice to see an American my weight for a change. I'm 24 and male though. Either way, British people seem to think that every American weighs 260lbs and sits on our asses all day. :/
SouthwesternEagle and they arent that far off. the majority of people i see around here are fat.
Nice Maybe we can start seeing the milky way again, without all that dam light pollution, Thanks mega shake
Photon please dont pop that old LPS lamp, its very collectable! where on earth did you find a working one!??
In our area they are installing led street lights after people voted for the lights to stay on all night
Can not believe they turn the lights out at 1am. The council have just dug all our old lights up and replaced them with brand new white LED lights.
They turn the lights out at 11:30 in Ipswich and I hate it.
the lights never go off here. I'm from Scotland. they go on as soon as it starts to get dark then they go off in the morning
Dundee, Scotland
+Velosical kl, it's a dump tbh dumpdee lol
To cheap to invest in LED lights. My city did, and in two years they will have payed for them self's.
I would go to the mayors street with a bee bee gun and shoot out all the street lights as i am sure they are on.
Thing is, low pressure sodium lamps are even more efficient than LEDs. They still take power to run, and that power adds up when you're lighting a city. IMHO, a better solution is to both slightly reduce the light level, and (I know I'm gonna get flack for this) hike city/property taxes just a hair- nothing noticeable or painful, just enough to keep the lights on.
LED streetlights are not all that energy efficient. LPS is still far more efficient lighting source.
Ryan Willis Property taxes are so fucking evil it isn't even funny.
aptsys The US mostly use HPS and Metal halide lamps. Metal Halide is preferred because they are blue-white instead of orange.
Richard Smith Mercury Vapor lamps are still popular where I live, one of the larger streets is lit with mostly 400w MV lamps. as far as I know, they only replace them when they break, they wused to replace them with HPS but now i'm starting to see LED in some places.
It's a shame all the streetlights are Led s now and they give out cold white light
In about 1980 I tested some of the earliest "midnight off" switches for street lamps which came back on a 6am. At that time they were never intended for town streets but sections of road on the outskirts and some sections of motorways. I can assure you the original designers would have been very disappointed at what they would have considered, a gross misuse of their idea and development.
In Basingstoke where I live, the newer white street lights dim in the early hours of the morning.
It does make everything look a bit eerie, but produces enough light to see what's going on.
What's the matter, afraid you'll see the stars? No vehicle insurance? Enjoy high taxes?
I doubt that anyone's taxes are actually going down.
LPS is so underrated. Who cares if its monochromatic. That's a good thing. Low light pollution, easily filterable.. I went out of my way here to get an LPS luminaire for my house here. 18w lights up the whole place. Was nearly impossible to find. Why they went out in the 70s, who knows. Arc lamps in general will likely be a memory in the next 10 years. Keeping a stock of MV, SBMV, LPS and HPS setups just for nostalgia. :)
Well collect as many bulbs you can still have because one day they all might be Museum artifactes.
1:23 - One of the funniest P.I. moments ever! A shame it had to come under such unfortunate circumstances. I like the insulators on your front pedestals too.
Why not buy a ligit street lamp like a thorn gamma 6 or a more cheaper option a thorn beta 5
Here's my solution: When the street lights go out, it becomes "Weapons free" and you can kill any burglar or violent criminal if he's doing it during those dark hours, with no consequences for the person who took out the trash.
Considering it's the UK the police probably don't investigate when any of the locals go missing or get stabbed to death, but they'd probably put a full investigation team in if an immigrant trying to steal your car incidentally fell on a bed of knives.
So the orange street lights are sodium. In the US my street sometimes has aqua-ish ones. What type of lights are these?
creepy asf I can't sleep there I need lights every where
I live in UK and I hate living here, I go to bed at 6:00am when they are on again, this gave me insomnia and I need to leave before I get Vitamin D deficiency due to sleeping most of the day and up all night.
Same here North London, lights are off at midnight !
We might as well dig up all the street lights across the country and ebay the lot, as there is no point in having unused street lights !
I wish they did that in my city, would be nice to see some stars from time to time. Besides, who needs light as a deterrent when you have the equipment to electrify your entire property lol
Ever since your original channel I've been knee deep in what you talk about. You've inadvertently taught me how resistors and rectifiers work an I'm on my way studying and the like to become an electrical engineer. I don't car if it's just construction but you are one of my heroes photon. It's like reverse engineering you teach us so much of what could go wrong if we did too much. I'd pour you cider. You're the best.
Great video, Do your rates go down too. Whoever came up with that idea should gets its ass kicked.
Nice to see that LPS in action. Love to get hold of one of those lamps one day. NZ is all HPS. Great those blue LED's in your gate marker insulators.
RODALCO2007 I have a feeling it’s corona, not LEDs.
I think photon would prefer corona over LEDs any day.
I didn't even know know these things were controlled, thought they were on a timer. my lights around my area have been recently upgraded to the more high tech lamps and they stay on all night long
They have a photocell which detects when it gets dark. But I’m guessing power gets cut off until morning
@@fst1775 it maybe depending on which council controls your area. I believe mine turn off around 8 or 9. But that maybe the sensors
Guessing they are saving money by turning the lights off so they can buy more cctv crap.
The lights go out for at about 23:30. Pub shut. Pissed again.
Take it they use the old 5c utility cables then in your area.
well they couldve saved money by using LEDs, much less power used, better choice than turning them off at 1 am
Sodium lamps are brighter and last longer.
Im not from the UK but it seems that this kind of policy could lead to a point where illumination at night will stop being public and people will have to light their own street, like a condominium. Don't need to be a politic either to understand that crime will increase with that measure.
Andy... You could go one step further here friend... Get one of those massive arc lights you have, and stick it pointing upwards near the end of a 100ft pole, then just above the light fit a nice big reflector shaped like this 'V'. Should light up the neighborhood real good and make the authorities & government look like the useless festering piles of sewage they really are!
Great vid mate as always.
They trailed turning them off down here in the SW around a year ago. We're quite lucky here and don't get much crime; when the lights were off it was even better because no one could see outside, so they all stayed in.
They've decided to turn them down to ¼ brightness after 11pm now. Hardly noticeable but must save a tonne of energy!
But light pollution is serious problem. It harms people's health, same for animals. Too much light during the night is unnatural for both humans and animals.
And outdoor lighting is huge waster of energy, usually those lights have really low energy efficiency, if they are not LEDs. Most energy is wasted as it warms the air. Also, most lamps are poorly designed and they blast that light every direction. There is no reason to light the sky. That is also the reason why most people on Earth have detached from real night sky. People do not recognize the stars, constellations, planets, nebulaes and so on. Heck, in largest cities people have never seen any stars except the Sun. It's also problem for astronomers because there is light pollution everywhere, it goes surprisingly far.
In Australia alone, it costs A$210 million to run the public lights a year. They use 1,035 GWh of electricity and cause 1.15 million tonnes of CO2 emissions.
thebel89 I'm not sure how it causes harm to humans like myself, a lot of light at night is unnatural but in my area we sleep in houses. With blinds.Yeah some street lighting is pretty inefficient, Mercury vapor lighting is pretty common in my area but it's being completely phased out by next year, nothing will be purchasable anymore. Only like 40 to 50 lumens per watt which is horrible. The rest is heat.The most common is high pressure sodium, it's what lights 3/4 of my area and is actually very efficient and has a lot less light pollution than mercury vapor just due to the few areas of the spectrum it produces. It can get up to 140 lumens per watt; very efficient. But you get enough of them, and the whole sky has a yellow glow. Years ago when most of the lighting was mercury vapor, it wasn't so yellow. LED was less efficient than high pressure sodium for street lighting up until about 5 years ago, but it's still not much better today. Most led lighting for domestic outdoor use is much less efficient than the older high pressure sodium. LED sure does put off some heat, the whole body of those LED street lights are just large heatsinks. They're not as efficient as people think. Hardly better than HPS.That low pressure sodium lamp Photonicinduction put on his house is hands down more efficient than LED lighting. It also produces less light pollution naturally as it's monochromic. But it may not put all of the light on the ground, that's due to the housing, not the light source.I'm not disagreeing that light pollution or energy conserving aren't issues, but what we use today and even 10 years ago is pretty efficient.
My streetlights down my street are on form 7PM to 6:30AM every single day of the week. (Including weekends)
TheGamerWithMore my streetlights all have their own photocells and turn on individually. The sun rises and falls at a different time every day so a timer would have to be completely thought out
In my town (a small one in the italian alps) they use sodium and LED lamps, they dim them after 12:00 pm but they NEVER switch them off completely.
That was the most amazing video I have ever seen.
lol, really? I thought it was the shittiest one I've done.
I will do more :)
It was very artistic ***** :) I was expecting you to rant, but instead I was greeted with soothing tunes. Ah well I love your solution and given your power setup it prob doesn't do anything to your power bills
Photonicinduction I like this video a lot just because the way you made it and the design, oh, and your bedside lamp...
Would a 100 watt led be more efficient then a 200 watt lps? I hear stories of those lps lamps and tossing them into wet dumpsters they kinda go boom from the sodium-water reaction. Any truth behind that?
The enormous increase in street and road lighting in the last 30 years has all but destroyed night in many areas. Light pollution is a major problem all over the country. At last some people are having the sense to turn off or dim lighting when it is no longer reasonably needed, as used to be the case many years ago. There is no need to light main roads between towns (cars have headlights for that purpose) and it is a great fallacy that no lighting means more crime. In fact, the opposite is true. If morons intent on crime can't see what they are doing, they will go elsewhere or use torches, making them visible to others and more easily detected. There are numerous instances where new lighting has been installed and within a week everywhere is covered with graffitti.
When I was young, there were gaslamps in most of the town. They gave a sufficient light to see where to walk. They were all that was needed in residental areas.
When low-pressure Na lights were used, although the light level increased many times (unneccessarily), the monochromatic light caused little effect in the sky. But high-pressure sodium lights are the most misused invention ever. They give light all over the spectrum and are usually far too bright for the need, leaving an orange glow across the sky. To make it worse, most modern fittings are pig ugly, utilitarian things that detract from the appearance of the area even by day.
There are still countless miles of roads lit up like a football pitch all night, with no-one there. That is plain stupid and a massive waste of energy.
So, GOOD! at last some people are realising that the use of outdoor night lighting has gone out of all proportion to the actual need.
Couldn't deliver the message any better. Lighting at night has most definitely destroyed the night sky, its especially sad when if you want to see like the Milky Way you have to go to somewhere rural and often especially depending where you live (Europe is basically a mess, East Coast USA is a mess) that rural spot can be a couple hours. Good message you gave. :)
they should have the lighting on demand based with sensor loops in the road
Crime rates in totally unlit areas are essentially zero. The criminals need to see, and carrying a torch is a bit of a giveaway. And criminals just love those IR activated floodlights that let them see what they are doing as they break open your front door. And oh my, the stars. It is so great to see the stars again. I wish they would do this all over the country.