Why street lights during night time are warm orange colored and not white lights? Won’t having white lights seem more like daylight?
In: Physics
The yellow light comes from Sodium lamps. It’s just how they glow for chemical reasons. More modern street lights are LEDs and more white to light-blue. They’re also brighter and more directed instead of glowing in all directions.
There are questions of the most efficient sorts of lights to implement, and there are also those of the nature of the eye.
Blue light is *harsh* at night because we aren’t supposed to have it at night, naturally it’s only really from the Sun. And blue light is a component of white lights. And blue or white light is shown to affect your melatonin and your circadian rhythm, potentially keeping you awake at night.
The one question of *can we enable people to be awake at night* shouldn’t “outshine” the other: *should we actually cause them to stay awake at night?*
I’ve heard there is also a crime deterrent aspect to the orange lights as the shadows aren’t as dark and so criminals can’t hide in than as well.
Orange lights are way cheaper, and there’s also an argument that the blue light emitted from white lights cause more glare when driving through rain and snow. However, research has shown that using white light increases peripheral vision significantly, and greatly increases people’s ability to brake in time, so in that sense it would be the safer choice
Orange lights don’t attract bugs in the summer. I’m from a rural area and my mother and grandmother both have pole lights. They used to be white lights back in the 80s and 90s and then I went home and they were yellow/orange. I asked and was told by my mom. No bugs were flying around them. When I was kid, there would be TONS of bugs flying around them all night.
If you parked under one, your car would have a ton of bugs on it. Can also be a little dangerous because a bunch of bugs can bring bats and you don’t want bats flying your house. Especially if you have to leave at night or live in an area where people have window fans. I don’t care how many “cute” photos you see of them on Reddit, bats are disease (rabies) carriers. I don’t care if only 1% carry; it’s that 1% that generally come into contact with humans.
Edit: for the bastards that just automatically downvote everything:
https://www.vulcantermite.com/home-improvement/outdoor-lighting-options-that-wont-attract-bugs/
It’s all about money.
Sodium lamps use less electricity to produce the same amount of light as a white light.
And when you have thousands of street lights in a city those costs add up real fast.
That’s called the “warmth” of the light. The orange light rather than “daylight” produces less glare and cuts through fog a bit better. The technology is older but LED lights are anywhere from 2-3 times more expensive to purchase. Led brings savings in efficiency and cost BUT that takes a while to justify replacement
Not only are high pressure sodium lamps cheaper, they don’t compete with the white of headlights.
A lot of where I live in the UK has actually switched to white LED street lamps. It was weird at first but they do make walking around at night significantly less scary, cus… you know…. Monsters
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