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Highlands Today

Smart Lighting

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Kye Ewing

Published: February 18, 2008

One of the main goals for nighttime lighting is to have good safety and security at night. However, the task is to be safe, not just to feel safe.

Good lighting can be a help; poor lighting always compromises safety. Current and past studies by competent crime authorities has been summarized as follows: "The lack of data precludes any definitive statement regarding the relationship of lighting and crime."

In other words, it has never been proven that lighting makes you more safe. And, most residential crime takes place in the daytime. Quality lighting rather than a large quantity of poor lighting is essential for real safety. Public street lighting and business lighting should not impair drivers by glaring light towards the road. Private home lighting should provide safety for homeowners by coming on only when it is needed.

The biggest problem: 175 watt dusk-to-dawn "security lights." A good deal of the light output from fixtures is wasted, going up or sideways where it does no good at all. It casts harsh shadows behind trees and buildings, making it harder for people to see and allowing criminals plenty of dark areas to hide in. It is a prime example of bad lighting.

The solution: shielded infrared sensor lights that come on when someone walks into the field of view of the detector. These lights are very effective in terms of cost and security. They can be pointed to the ground where you need to see where you are walking, and they scare intruders away by coming on whether someone has seen the would-be intruder approaching or not.

Let's consider the energy waste: Every dusk-to-dawn "security light" is wasting more than $40 per year merely to light the sky and produce glare. In addition, this waste also means that we are burning a significant amount of fuels to produce that light, for no useful purpose, contributing only to the pollution of our environment and extending our dependency on those fuels. It has been estimated that nationwide over a billion dollars a year is being spent to send light up into space! Let's have real security, not just bad lighting.

Kye Ewing
Venus

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