Better Lighting to Prevent Accidents
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TWO strong arguments in favour of better vehicle and street lighting to prevent road accidents were put forward in London this week. Mr. J. H. Nelson, Ph.D., F.I.E.S., A.M.I.Mech.E., senior lighting engineer, Joseph Lucas, Ltd., said that rear lamps, particularly on commercial vehicles, had been neglected by lamp designers, vehicle builders and operators.
Mr. Nelson, who read a paper on lighting and its contribution to road safety before members of the Institute of Road Transport Engineers, said that the whole of the improvements• in present-day rear lamps was to be found in the glass lens used, so that no extra load was thrown on the battery.
The speaker put forward a number of reasons why head lamps should be used in built-up areas. Running on side lamps in town was described by Mr. Nelson as dangerous. With the best type of street lighting, he said, the headlights contributed nothing to the driver's view of the highway, but they served as a warning to pedestrians. They also allowed a driver to position himself more accurately on the road by defining the kerb line.
Mr. William Robinson, lighting officer of the British Electrical Development Association, speaking on the subject of street lighting at a Press conference on Monday, said that 21 times as many adult pedestrians were killed per hour of darkness as per hour during the day. The disturbing factor was that the rate of fatal accidents per hour at nights was increasing greatly.
In 1945, 64 adult pedestrians were killed at night for every 100 by day. The figures for 1952 were 100 each respectively.
Mr. Robinson contended that -there was no other single road-safety measure that could give the same hope of reducing road accidents as that which would follow the modernization of existing street lighting.