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I appreciate how important it was in the past, but in the era of inexpensive and powerful LED flashlights, streetlights do seem rather redundant and wasteful.
by RobotToaster 4y ago
I appreciate how important it was in the past, but in the era of inexpensive and powerful LED flashlights, streetlights do seem rather redundant and wasteful.
- TSiege 4y agoMaybe in rural environments, but they're quite important in urban environments
- worthless-trash 4y agoDo people in the US just walk in the middle of the road ?
- jaggederest 4y agoThe critical question is, do people in the US just drive on the sidewalks? (It's impossible to walk on sidewalks in a city without crossing streets every block, and that's where car/pedestrian conflicts occur)
- michaelteter 4y ago> do people in the US just drive on the sidewalks? I think you must first ask, "What percentage of roads in the US have sidewalks?" It's nowhere close to 100%.
- worthless-trash 4y agoestimate for me, is it closer to 20, I really dont know.
- SamPatt 4y agoI live in a small village in the US, pop. ~1,000. I'd guess that less than half the streets within village limits have sidewalks. And of course outside the village it's miles and miles of fields and forests with none. Urban life is very different from rural.
- Xt-6 4y agoFor that they first would need to walk ...
- leviathant 4y agoI know some people think this is a silly question but the answer is, in my experience, yes. That's both in urban and exurban environments, in my experience.
- michaelteter 4y agoNot usually, but sometimes cars drive too close to the edge of the road, and the road has no sidewalk. And despite good advice (or simply due to a momentary circumstance), some people walk at night with dark clothing. You can turn a corner a hit a person very easily if they are in any half of your side of the street.
- __MatrixMan__ 4y agoDepends on the road. My neighborhood has no sidewalks. I prefer it. Prevents the cars from acting like they own the place.
- TSiege 4y agoStreet lights aren't just important for cars? Imagine being a woman walking around a city at night in the dark by yourself
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoI was under the impressions that street lights promote safety by reducing chances of person to person crime. It’s harder to hide in the shadows and get away without people seeing you with streetlights. So a handheld flashlight doesn’t solve that problem.
- hackernewds 4y agoAbsolutely does. Here's the data to back that up https://urbanlabs.uchicago.edu/projects/crime-lights-study https://urbanlabs.uchicago.edu/projects/crime-lights-study I feel this push for being able to see the Milky way every night fails to recognize the realities of urban life in non-matcha latte neighborhoods
- _hcuq 4y agoMaybe the non latte neighbourhoods need streetlights. But we could get rid of them in the latte neighbourhoods.
- culi 4y agoThe problem is that extremely powerful lights, as many cities are tending to more and more, can actually create more blind spots and makes it harder for our eyes to adjust to those dark spots. If cities adopted more, weaker, warmer lights we'd likely see much less damage to the ecosystem AND increased safety
- __MatrixMan__ 4y agoModern LED's are so darn bright, the right handheld flashlight might as well be considered a weapon.
- lightedman 4y agoIn typical night conditions, a single Nichia 219-series LED at full drive would temporarily flash-blind someone with just a quarter of a second of exposure.