Abstract
ILLUMINATING engineers arc beginning to agitate for national control of the lighting of roads and streets. In the Electrical Review of June 8, C. W. Sully points out that boroughs and urban councils in Great Britain are granted powers regarding street lighting by the Public Health Act of 1875 and that rural districts exercise their powers under the Lighting and Watching Act of 1833. The public lighting of all our thoroughfares to-day is controlled by Acts published either sixty or a hundred years ago. Our population has nearly trebled since 1833 and has increased by more than seventy per cent since the last Act became law. There wore no fast moving vehicles on our roads sixty years ago—there are now two million licensed automobiles. The existence of vast numbers of cinemas and also of greyhound racing tracks encourages pedestrians to use the streets after dark. Yet much of our highway lighting is mounted on similar posts spaced at the same distance apart as when our road vehicles were fitted with lanterns carrying candles. The candle power of the lights have been increased a hundred-fold in order to lessen the risk of accidents but in many roads the lighting is very ‘patchy’, the lamps acting mainly as beacon lights. It is wasteful to employ large units without suitable directive fittings to ensure a uniform distribution of the light. The new British Standard Specification makes a special feature of this by setting out a spacing ratio for street lights which produces a more uniform illumination. In general this entails altering the height of the posts. It would be advisable if the Government would allot to one of its numerous departments the task of specifying the minimum light to be provided on the various roads which it has already classified. It appears that new legislation is required to deal with this important matter.
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Street Lighting. Nature 133, 943 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133943a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133943a0