In the current climate, everyone is looking to save money. That’s understandable, but what we must always do is to make sure that we only save money in areas that make sense.
Perhaps that is why there has been some disagreement over whether a new idea from the Highways Agency is really such a good idea at all.
Ever mindful of the need to save money and reduce their carbon footprint for the sake of the environment, the idea is that some streets lights could be turned off. Not all the time, but it has been suggested that doing so between midnight and five o’clock in the morning might be a good idea.
If this did happen on a wide scale, it would not just be a case of turning off all the lights in every single area of the country. Only some areas would be subject to the switch off, depending on a number of important factors. The area concerned and how much traffic it sees would be one aspect of the decision, for example.
But as the city of Bath has seen, it’s not always a case of all or nothing when it comes to street lighting. They are currently deciding how to implement the idea, and no major roads would be affected if the switch off did happen. Some lights could be dimmed to be less bright and thus use less power, while others could indeed be turned off altogether during the small hours of the night.
It is understandable that this suggestion should be seriously considered – as it is in other countries across the UK too – because it can save a lot of money. Bath could cut its bills by half as a result of doing this.
But others have pointed out that safety and security are being treated as being less important during this exercise. Not only would drivers be challenged to a greater degree at night – the very time at which they are likely to be more tired as well – but the element of security should also be thought about.
While most of us may well be tucked up in bed during the small hours, shift workers and other people may have to make their way home on foot at this time. How much more difficult would this be if they now have to walk down an unlit road? Would you walk down an unlit road on a moonless night to get to where you wanted to go? Not many people would.
It is interesting that Powys has tried this initiative already and actually switched all their lights back on. Can we assume from this that the idea, while being a good one, is actually not as good as was first thought?
Dimming the lights would certainly be an option, and it would still save money, albeit not as much as switching the lights off altogether would be. But it just goes to show that the rules that apply to homeowners – saving energy by only having lights on when you need them – apply to society as a whole too.