It's a race to the bottom. Light with more white in it feels brighter. Drivers prefer whiter headlights because it feels like the road is more illuminated. C

It's a race to the bottom. Light with more white in it feels brighter. Drivers prefer whiter headlights because it feels like the road is more illuminated. Car manufacturers move to HID or LED projectors for whiter light. Whiter light causes the pupil to contract significantly more. Drivers with contracted pupils from the white headlights find the yellow sodium bulbs in streetlights and parking lots too dim. Governments and businesses replace the sodium bulbs with bright white LEDs. At every step along the way we're seeing less of the night. Shadows become darker. A person or animal coming in from the shadowed roadside is increasingly invisible. A mugger can jump you from an alley with no chance of being seen because the shadows are so deep. Now we have to increase the portion of the Earth that's illuminated at night for "safety". This disrupts animals more and deepens the shadows further. It's incredibly stupid and there's no way to stop it without some overarching power a) doing a scientific study into night lighting and b) using that as a reason to impose intense lighting regulations and enforcement. Too late now.