NIGHT LIGHTING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 96, 26 April 1938, Page 20

NIGHT LIGHTING.

DRIVING PROBLEM. USE OF REFLECTORS. RESEARCH IN AMERICA. (By EDWARD W. MORRISON*.) DETROIT, February IS). Hoping to cut the toll of night driving, the automobile industry is studying with care tlio efforts of cities throughout the country to improve visibility on streets and highways and to make headlights meet reasonable safety standards. To-day more persons are killed in traffic accident* from dusk to duwn than arc killed during daylight hours, although only about 23 per cent of the traflic moves at night. And the toll has been increasing each year. For instance, in 1030. lev* than half of the total traflic fatalities occurred at night, in contrast to the present figure of about 00 per cent. To combat the rising night fatality rate many cities have been experimenting with lighting conditions at curves, intersections, trafiie circles and along trunk routes with heavy accident tolf.

Active in co-operating have been- State and county highway engineer.-?, motor vehicle administrators, safety council officials, illuminating engineers and utility companies. Complementing- this activity hae been the work of the automobile manufacturers and the headlamp maker* in obtaining headlights that will operate with maximum efficiency and a minimum of glare. Two problems are involved in improving the visibility of the highways without assistance from the car'itself. Ya*t stretches of rural pavements must be surveyed for possible illumination; urban street* with high accident rates, even when lighted, must receive new attention from lighting engineers. World Rushes Ahead. But can money be poured into illumination projects outside urban distracts? That question calls for an answer before serious etudy can be given to lighting programmes that would carrv even af far a> the majority of main trunk lines. And the likelihood that State and country budgets can absorb the items involved remains remote. N'evertheler *. individual communities are pushing ahead with illumination for long stretches of highway. This work can not fail to achieve results in safety figures, in the belief of the automobile manufacturers.

The general opinion within the automobile industry is that the cause of safety can best be served by lighting improvements along curves, in dark valleys and at dangerous intersections. Recent experiments with sodium vapour lamps in particular danger zones have aroused interest. Strongest opponents of sodium vapour lamps are women. The yellowish colour of the light is distasteful because it makes a woman's rouge acquire a greenish-purple tinge. Nevertheless!, safety officials find in these lights, with their suggestion of caution, a suitable illumination for intersections. Detroit, which has tried them out, mav adopt still more such lamps. E. 1!. Cato. chief of the California Highway Patrol, has reported that sodium lights serve well in the soupy atmosphere that occasionally drifts over the San Francisco-Oakland Bridge. Detroit has learned recently that it may not be necessary to adopt lighting innovations, however, to improve visibility. When it was found that eight streets accounted for 20 per cent of the automobile fatalities, thirty-one miles along these streets were relighted. For every person killed during the day. ,wv?n had been killed at night. Now, for every person killed during tht day, only 1.6 die at night. More street lamps irere not added, nor were existing lamps made more powerful. Two changes were made, however. The new lights were hung four feet higher (now 22 feet), and they were encased in polished metal reflectors, which increased visibility ten to twenty times. Meanwhile, Detroit motorists are operating under a new ordinance which coinpel- diem to dim their lights when on well-illuminated thoroughfare?. Under this ordinance, drivers are ] enalised if ■they do not use the lower beam of their headlamps. On the main thoroughfares of the city, the police even approve of the use of parking light*. Says Louis J. Schrenk, public lighting superintendent: "Visibility at l.ight i>:ist be provided from soure , * of light ; other than the automobile headlights. i Bright headlights are of no use to thfi J driver. Their glare constitutes one of our greatest driving hazards."—N.A.N.A.