Is It Necessary to Install Street Light for Highways?

Many people have noticed that, except for important bridge decks and tunnels, lots of highways are not equipped with street lights. Compared with the brightness on city roads at night, the highway looks extremely dark and insecure. This makes people wonder why can′t highways be installed with street lights to increase brightness and improve safety like urban roads?

After some investigation and data research, we found the following main reasons for not installing street lights on highways:

High safety factors of highway

At night, pedestrians and non-motorized vehicles can be seen everywhere on city roads, but there is no such phenomenon on highways. This is because the highway does not allow pedestrians and non-motorized vehicles, nor motorcycles, tractors, and tricycles.

On the other hand, the installation of led street lights is not for vehicle safety and convenience (because vehicles have headlights), but for the safety and convenience of non-motorized vehicles and pedestrians. The service functions of highways and urban roads are different. Urban roads are not only vehicular traffic, but also densely packed with non-motor vehicles and pedestrians, so there are street lights; highways are roads outside the city connecting cities and cities, cities and villages, and there are few non-motorized roads motor vehicles and pedestrians. Therefore, there are no street lights on general expressways. In addition, the road surface of the expressway is very flat, there is no obvious potholes, the road conditions are maintained better, and the safety factor is higher.

Reflecting signs set on the road meet the demand

Is installing street lights on highways safer and more convenient for drivers on the road? The answer is negative. According to the feedback from some experts, street lighting is discontinuous and uneven. For drivers of high-speed vehicles, this alternating light and dark can cause visual errors (illusions), which is very dangerous. In addition, this will also quickly cause eye fatigue. Moreover, the street lights are poorly illuminated, and they are scattered light, which will dazzle drivers in long-distance driving and cause driving safety hazards.

At this moment, we can′t help but wonder: what if the driver is driving on the highway at night without street lights?

The fact is when the outside lighting is insufficient, vehicle headlights can provide safer lighting for drivers. Since there is no obstruction from oncoming cars, you can drive with high beams at night. In addition, when vehicles are driving at night, the perfect road signs and reflecting signs on the highway fully meet the needs. At night, under the strong illumination of the car′s headlights, the reflecting film on the traffic signs will directionally reflect the light and illuminate the road, and can clearly reflect various traffic signs to the driver's eyes, which is enough to complete the function of direction guidance.

The cost is too high and the management is troublesome

Although the total mileage of highways in each country is different, their construction scope is generally very long. Installing street lights on all sections of the road must be a considerable expense. Moreover, the randomness of the vehicle flow on the expressway is too strong. Installing street lights for the passage of a small number of vehicles will inevitably cause huge energy waste. Apart from this, the highway crosses the state and the province, and the power supply and management of each section is also a thorny issue.

In summary, installing street lights on highways is not necessarily scientific, nor is it energy efficient. And although the highway safety factor is relatively high, people still need to be careful when driving at night.

But we also cannot deny that not every country′s highways are not equipped with street lights. Some countries such as Belgium and the Emirate of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates are indeed covered by high-speed road lights, and these countries have two common characteristics, the first is that both they are very rich, and the second is that they are a small country. Belgium is an old capitalist developed country with high taxes. But its land area is only a little over 30,000 square kilometers. While Abu Dhabi sits on 92% of the UAE′s oil reserves, which is very wealthy.