Good Lighting Promotes Safety I T is appropriate, at this time,
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to consider some of the aspects of the illumination of our highways, for yesterday saw the conclusion of the Annual Conference of the Association of Public Lighting Engineers. Their work is so bound up with the use of the roads that they may be considered almost as part of the road-transport industry—and a particularly important part at that.
There is little doubt that if the main thoroughfares of this country, and even the more important byways, could be provided with adequate lighting installations there would be a considerable reduction in the number of accidents. Certainly all new roads should be thoroughly equipped in this Manner for their entire lengths.
The ideal to be aimed at is such a quality of illumination as would dispense with the• need for powerful headlights. Dipping lamps and such devices are, after all, only palliatives, and some depend -too much upon the human element for their effective use, for there are still many cases of crashes resulting from dazzle. In this issue we include précis of all but one of the papers read at the above Conference. They certainly show an excellent grip of the subject; in fact, it may not be too much to say that the lighting engineers are more advanced than their confreres of the road, although, perhaps, it is unfair to make this invidious comparison, because the latter have not yet been permitted full scope.
There is necessarily competition. between the advocates of gas and electricity, but this is all to the good, for experts in each class are vieing one with the other in making improvements to their respective products.
Many of the suggestions put forward are eminently sound. One is that many miles of main road on which lighting is totally absent or unsatisfactory could be better illuminated by cutting down to a sufficiency that on others now extravagantly equipped. It is pointed out, however, that only a central authority for the whole country could bring this about, and it is suggested that the Minister of Transport should see what can be done on these lines.