Outdoor Lighting and Crime - Amper

the fully transparent state in typical night lighting conditions. So far, these professions have
not adequately self-regulated on this matter. Tinted visors used at night in motorcycle
helmets pose a similar problem in visual ergonomics.
In the longer term, it may be possible to set street lighting levels quantitatively at an optimum
level in which road safety needs are balanced against crime reduction requirements. In the
meantime, there are good reasons for universal adoption of full-cutoff street lighting. One of
the more important is that scattering of light from windshields adds to the disability glare
experienced by drivers. In comparison with other kinds of street lighting, full-cutoff
luminaires produce substantially less glare.
7.4 ILLUMINATED SIGNS, DISPLAYS, BUILDINGS AND
STRUCTURES
Australian Standard AS 4282-1997, Control of the obtrusive effects of outdoor lighting (SA
1997), sets limits for spill light including glare effects on drivers at nearby roads. Its glare
specification is necessarily a little complex in keeping with its high technical face validity and
not easy for non-specialist readers to follow. Unfortunately, illuminated advertising signs
(which includes billboards) are exempted from compliance with AS 4282-1997. The outdoor
advertising industry in Australia was represented on the drafting committee but presumably
opted for self-regulation. Planning authorities in Australia seldom make compliance with AS
4282-1997 mandatory and generally avoid arguments about differences of conditions across
municipal boundaries, so change in this area has been difficult to bring about. In general,
illuminated signs and floodlit buildings and structures, especially those partly or totally lit by
upwardly aimed floodlights, continue to set the pace in Australia and elsewhere for lack of
concern about the night environment.
Identical limits for glare from some road lighting installations are set in the Australian and
New Zealand Standard AS/NZS 1158.1.1:1999 (SA 1999), which is generally a mandatory
standard for road lighting on major traffic routes. Lit advertising signs and commercial
floodlighting again escape any requirement to comply, however, despite the need to do so
often being unpleasantly obvious to drivers.
In the many years since its introduction, initially as an interim standard from 1995 to 1997,
AS 4282 has apparently not helped in Australian attempts to curb the upward ‘ratcheting’ of
sign brightness and size that passes for competition in the outdoor advertising industry (IDA
IS35 1997). It is now clearer than ever that lighting, size and placement of advertising signs
need to be under stringent mandatory control to prevent or limit the occurrence of glare and
deep shadows, environmental and social problems and excessive upward spill light. 95
95 One example among many of excess in Melbourne is an internally lit sign covering much
of the front of a commercial multi-storey building. The sign is mostly white, with a few
percent of the area covered by black lettering. The sign has an operating mean luminance of
many hundreds of candelas per square metre. Its purpose was stated as providing a centre of
attraction and activity for the surrounding strip shopping centre. Nearby residents seeking
relief from the light nuisance and glare were only given the protection of an 11 pm curfew.
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