Automatic Streetlamps Switch On When Cars Pass, Switch Off When Traffic Ceases

Would this not be perfect for, I don't know, pedestrian paths? Cars don't necessarily need street lamps (though they're helpful). What about sidewalks and park areas? As you approach a block, the lights on that block turn on and the ones on the block behind you turn off, one-by-one. Safety, efficiency and less light pollution.

UMMM.... this s good news for muggers!

just stand still and wait for the light to go out, the victem is blinded by the difference in light and dilated pupils.. then BAM jump out, stick 'em with a shank and take their jewellery & money!

YUP.. smart... oh wait... i forgot.. jump out, grab and drag her into an alley and do what you want to her... stick her in a car, drive away, handcuff her to a bed and invite men over to give her a go for a few hundred bucks.... this is already A VERY LARGE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES, where power conservation is most criticilly needed and most likely to be used.

light is safety.... only a dumbass would not realise this is stupid and a public safety blunder beyond belief!!

cheers, eh

They should do this with traffic lights. It's crazy to sit at a red light in the middle of the night, when nobody else is around.

Automatic street lights have been operating in Europe for some time now. With projects for example of Philips and Local municipalities. They detect cars and bikes automatically as well. In Europe we have also been operating more and more green lanes now (don`t know about it in other parts of the world). Our green lanes recognize cars and advise speeds on posts next to the lane you are driving. The speed advise lets you reach the next traffic light on time before it turns red. It even allows you to drive slightly faster then the maximum speed so you can reach the next traffic light on time.

It really is great to reduce pollution of cars and it also allows a much better use of the roads with faster movement of cars in cities. In the past i for example had to stop at 4 traffic lights (of 7) across the outer city road. Now i can reach each traffic light while it`s still green because i know the exact speed to drive to reach it without having to slow down because it`s still not green (or being too late and waiting). It safes me a few minutes each day alone and sometimes with more traffic it saves up to 10 minutes. Makes me very happy.

'Light is safety'

lol

lOl

LoL!

LMAO!

Why is there no limit to the ridiculous things people say?

most houses have a motion sensing light on the outside.
why not just use motion sensors instead of cameras
it wont matter how fast the car is moving and it will work for pedestrians and cyclists. and will also scare away stray animals.

What's wrong with solar street lighting? Pretty sure it already exists, and solar panels are getting cheaper every day. There's no cable installations to worry about, and soon enough they pay for themselves.

Stupid - Most street lams use very energy efficient lighting such as sodium vapor, etc.. those lamps take time to warm up and their life is drastically reduced by turning on/off. If they use LESS efficient bulbs like incandescent or halogen, it "can" work, HOWEVER, how much more maintenance and cost is there dealing with the electronics and control system? Plus flashing lights going on / off is a distraction.They really didn't do their research on this one!

Appears to be a sodium lamp shown that can't be easily controlled. Funny thing is they are twice as efficient as any led or even cold cathode florescent lamps are. So to get a controllable lamp one would have to substitute a twice as energy wasting lamp?? Dumb idea.

There is no solar PV cell today made that can return the energy that was used to create it. Also they would be poor choices for these 100W to 250W lamps as they need a huge ultracap or huge battery to take over all night and one cloudy weeks or even months.

Why doesn't Popsi post an article based on the facts of PV cells energy use total cost to create and install? Sure, one day maybe they will be OK if not produced from silicon. Silicon is just too energy consuming to create.

suddenly... ninjas!!!

@shutterpod

"light is safety" is incredibly accurate. Human's sensory intact is 70-90% visual, as a race we have incredibly poor night vision and even poorer still is our vision from either immediately going from light to dark or dark to light.

Look at ANY metropolitan area's pattern for mugging, abduction or sexual crime pattern and you will immidiately spot a constantly consitant variable. POORLY LIGHT AREA.

A police psychologist would tell you to put yourself in the criminals shoes, if it's premeditated then you've left the house having already scouted a good spot that you're familiar with and has good cover and poor or controlled lighting with an escape route, if it's not premeditated then it's on impulse, the person has entered an ideal location and had a thought bubble to commit the crime... now picture a city that has all of it's lights turn off if you stay stationary for a minute. Every 40ft is now potentially an IDEAL location along the thousands of miles of city streets that are lined with staircases, doorways, shelters, dumpsters, trees, fences, ajoined allys.. all perfect to disrupt a person's sillohette until you're too close to do anything.

In my adopted hometown we hae a GAP along the main street infront of a medium sized autoparts store thathas a 38.6ft deep parking lot, the town has determined that lighting there is not needed as the stores own internal night lighting is sufficiant to light the streets sidewalk on tha side, in the last 11years 3 women have been abdulted from that exact spot and one mor escaped by crawling under a parked truck and holding onto the muffler to avoid being pulled out, she said 3 cars drove by in that time and didn't stop.

whether this is bad behaivior for a 20 000 person town or normal behaivior for a 20 000 person town with 20 000 additional people during the summer crime/tourists from the city season i don't know.... but i do know that every woman who walks alone up the street walks on the OTHER side of the road.

FYI, there's TWWO dark allys on that other side, now imagine you're a single woman and both sides are suddenly dark. wtf you gonna do now, eh??

"LIGHT IS SAFETY" it's dumb to argue anything but the fact that "safety" is an undifined variable in itself.

cheers, eh

Wow I agree PTV83 horrible idea, if a criminal could even figure out how to get that flickering the right way he could absolutely use it to ambush someone. That is a very scary thought, having to deal with that as your eyes are adjusting to the light a single man could be quite a threat with the most basic weapons.

Cool Article!

I cant even begin to comprehend the closed mindedness of people here.

Have you EVER in your life driven on an interstate or highway???? There are THOUSANDS of miles of roads with night lights that no person should be walking any where near!
HELLO??!?!
use your head! they are not talking about pedestrian lighting.
out side of cities lighted highways run for thousands of miles. No human being should be ANYWHERE near those roads. Their are no side walks, this is nothing but woods or desert.

What about a city like Atlanta. It has a hundred miles of interstates and interchanges and highways that no human can access with out a car. They are fences off. and I dont see too many people trying to cross Atlanta's many 12 lane sections of road. those areas are VERY well lit, they also get about 10 cars at 3 am.

I imagine LA's extensive highway and interstate system is much the same, 100% off limits for walking traffic.
Every one is trying to be so $$$$ing clever and bash this idea or make jokes about it, but instead you come of as the idiot.

"Pedestrians and motorists are no doubt safer when streetlamps, not just car headlights, illuminate roadways and sidewalks — but streetlamps are expensive and inefficient to run."

This implies that it would be used in civilian accessed areas. I would agree that most fears are irrational about this and it is a great energy saving method, but to say humans never go certain places is a stretch, I can't tell you how many times driving from slc to vegas I see random hitchhikers just walking down totally random stretches of highway in the middle of nowhere.