Outdoor Lighting and Crime - Amper

Section 5.2.2 needs to be replaced by measured data before any decision is made about the
need to limit its contribution to the total artificial ambient light. If there is a demonstrable
need, it may be necessary to limit the amounts of useful and spill light emitted by individual
vehicles and the number of vehicles in use at night. The latter could have a serious impact on
the roads system. In turn, reduced demand for roads, including freeways and tollways, could
assist in meeting the need to reduce streetlighting.
Any proposals to impose reductions on the road traffic at night would doubtess generate
vehement protests. But if the case is strong enough, it may force a shift to greater use of
public transport, given that trains, trams and buses can move more people for a given number
of headlights than can cars. Against this, mass transit vehicles generally have internal lighting
and large glazed areas that allow light to escape. This could be overcome, but the solutions
might not be popular. Any substantial shift to public transport would have far-reaching
ramifications for urban design.
The vehicle industry may need to rethink its acceptance and promotion of tinted glazing
because of the effective dimming of streetlights and vehicle lights it imposes on drivers (see
Section 7.3). The choice for the vehicle industry might be along the lines of going back to
clear glass and halving the output of headlights, or halving the number of vehicles on the
roads at night. When the need for streetlight reduction is also considered, the necessary
reduction in number of vehicles may be even larger.
In the meantime, knowledge of the contribution of vehicle lighting to ambient light at night
and the effects of lighting and tinting on the traffic accident rate at night both need to be put
on a firm quantitative basis. There is no place for sponsor bias in such investigations.
8.4 AT THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEVEL
Haphazard attempts by local government to deal with the problems of reducing outdoor
lighting would appear likely unless national and regional laws and guidelines are in place.
Local authorities often have responsibility for most forms of public lighting, sometimes
including highway and local street lighting. Local authorities may also be responsible for
approving other outdoor lighting, including illumination of signs and billboards. Many of
these bodies have their agenda papers available on the Internet. Sampling these soon
indicates that requests are often made to local governments for more and brighter public
lighting as a crime deterrent. At present, elected officials know they will hardly improve their
prospects of re-election by saying no. This is part of the process that appears to drive the
present upward trends of outdoor lighting and crime. It is suggested that local authorities
everywhere will have to ‘bite the bullet’ and refuse all such requests in future.
Accordingly, if any newly proposed lights are stated to be for unspecified ‘safety’ or crime
prevention/deterrence, the request should be rejected outright. If other reasons are given but
the real reason is suspected to be for crime prevention, the request should be rejected outright.
If lights are requested for mobility safety or to allay fear of crime or both, the request should
be approved only if some other lighting can be removed or reduced in power to compensate
fully or to overcompensate for the energy consumption as well as the output light flux of the
new installation. Whatever new lights can be installed as replacements or new installations in
lieu of lighting reductions elsewhere, use of correctly levelled full-cutoff luminaires should be
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