Three hundred streetlights are to be switched off in Buckinghamshire for a three-year trial of the road safety effectiveness of alternatives, such as ‘intelligent’ road studs and illuminated signs.
The county council will install £60,000 worth of road safety measures at seven sites so it can switch off lights and rein in spiralling electricity costs, which have increased by 102% since 2003/04. Officers believe night-time accidents at the seven rural and semi-rural sites would happen without lighting.
Buckinghamshire’s move comes after a number of councils decided to either switch off lights at appropriate locations during the night, or to install dimmer bulbs. Annual price hikes in electricity prices of 40% or more have forced councils’ hands.
The authority hopes it has avoided the outcry that has greeted the reduction of lighting in other counties by selecting country roads where it believes installing alternative lighting for car and motorcycle drivers could actually reduce accidents.
‘Simply switching off lights could be dangerous. We got our casualty-reduction team to work with our streetlight people to analyse the link between lighting and accidents,’ said Phil Stonehewer, group manager, strategic maintenance and casualty reduction.
‘Their conclusion was that almost three times as many accidents occurred during the day as at night, and the main reason for night-time crashes was driver error, which was unrelated to lighting. This gave the county confidence to proceed with the trial.’

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