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I'm glad that darkness is respected in some places. The need to live in constant light is, to me, unnerving. Light pollution, like noise pollution, creates a myopic dome of sensory oblivion, separating us from experiencing the sounds of nature, the splendor the night sky, the emotions of isolation. I think we'd be better off with a nightly reminder of the natural world and expansive universe beyond our city block.

People are afraid of the darkness.

I really wish that wasn't the case. But removing lights is an uphill battle powered by irrational arguments and doomed to failure even on the cases where it's clearly the best option.

Even dimming the lights is hard.

I've grudgingly come to admit that also people who don't have great vision love bright lighting. I can usually see perfectly well by starlight, but that's not the case for everyone.

I was once in the US Navy, and stood many a bridge watch. When it got dark, all outside lights except for the navigation lights (red light on port bow, green on starboard bow, a white light up top and another white light on the stern). And on the bridge, we used only dim red lights, to avoid affecting our night vision. None of the navigation lights was easily visible from the bridge. And you could see reasonably well, even on a cloudy night.

I'm a regular outdoor runner and also an extreme morning person, so I'm often out running at like 3 AM, and it is absolutely not safer to be in complete darkness. Surfaces are not perfectly uniform and unobstructed and the ambient light from the atmosphere and surrounding city, even dead in the center of a major metro area, is nowhere near enough to see everything you might hit. I've tripped many times and even broken my hand before. It is effectively impossible to ever go full speed.

if you're out running at night, perhaps you should also be carrying some lights? both to help you see your environment and to help others see you.

I run at night on trails (during the summer, when it's too hot to run during the day). I wear a headlamp, and don't trip any more than I do in the day--despite the fact that the trails have rocks and roots. The only issue I have is that because the headlamp is inches from my eyes, shadows are almost invisible.

Where I come from they did change the lights to LEDs, but they turn off 2/3rds or 3/4ths of them after midnight; still enough light to navigate, but much less power usage and light pollution. There's a bike lane outside of town whose lights were motion activated, iirc that was installed about 20 years ago.

I walk a lot and support this, even though I am not convinced it makes me more visible when not in front of the headlights. Typically, the danger happens when walking on the sidewalk perpendicular to a road. I can see the car, they cannot see me until I'm a few feet in to the crosswalk when I'm not lit up by a street light.

WTF? What about pedestrians? Are they walking in full darkness?

This seems to be totally oriented to cars. I find American cities incredibly dark by night. Walking around feels too dark and unpleasant.

> WTF? What about pedestrians? Are they walking in full darkness?

During a normal night, you get used to the darkness surprisingly fast, and if there even a slight sliver of moonlight, your eyes will within seconds adjust and let you see things again without trouble.

At least that's my experience growing up in the dark countryside in Sweden and seemingly retaining this as an adult, YMMV.

> During a normal night, you get used to the darkness surprisingly fast,

Then a car drives past and your sight instantly adjusts to that, but takes several minutes to adjust back. Then you're stuck in subjective total darkness for a while.

Or, if you're in an area with mixed lighting (e.g. you walk past a house that incidentally lights part of the street) then your eyes can never adjust and you have to walk through pools of total darkness. I know this experience from rare situations where a few streetlights go out in a row, and it's not as easy as you just portrayed it.

> At least that's my experience growing up in the dark countryside in Sweden

That's fair enough IMO. I don't think it's feasible or helpful to plaster every centimetre of every rural road in street lighting. But the comment we're replying to suggested removing them in cities "outside of ... active center areas". That's a different matter.

YMMV as you get older and lose that superpower.

What range/years are you specifically referring to? It seemingly is as good as ever, and I'm 32 now. I'm guessing that would start being around 40s, when the general eye-sight starts to decline?

Yep, right around your mid-40’s in my experience. Friends have said it started the day they woke up on their 40th birthday.

I don't think there is a rule for that? At least not in my case. My eyesight got worse really fast out-of-nowhere when I was like, 15 years old? And since then it didn't change anymore. I got myopia, after a few years of too much computer screen (the old CRTs).

While there was a suspicion of eyesight troubles in my late teens, it really kicked in during a period I was working on pretty crappy screens, that was in my late 20's. It's not much but enough to give me headaches when not wearing them.

How old are you? Most people experience worsening eyesight mid 40s.

I'm currently 37, I hope it doesn't start to get worse again anytime soon. I never used glasses regularly, btw. Always had the impression that would weaken my eyes long-term.

There’s a new-ish body of research that suggests aging is non-linear/happens in “cliffs,” and that the first big decline is mid-40s. Something to look forward to.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/08/15/1096799/aging-hi...

About the time you start needing reading glasses to see your phone or computer screen. Between 40-50 years for most people. You will develop an appreciation for the people who complain about small fonts and low-contrast color schemes. And yes, adapting to darkness takes longer.

> people who complain about small fonts and low-contrast color schemes.

I already do this at this point, so guessing that's a club I'm in already, even if my eye-sight is perfect :)

Well, I guess I'll report back in 10-20 years and I can finally have this confirmed for all of us.

It's not usually possible to reply to decades-old HN threads.

This is a car-centric ableist take.

Not everyone has excellent vision. In addition to those who are actually visually impaired, your eyesight simply gets worse as you get older even if you had perfect vision when you're young.

And even if you can adjust to the night, which is Moon and cloud-dependent anyway, that completely goes away every time a car goes past with its LED high beams.

LED lights have way more capacity to be directional. There's absolutely no reason why street lights can't mostly point down to light the street and sidewalks with minimal light pollution to any nearby houses.

> This is a car-centric ableist take.

Growing up on a island with 700 people where the most common mode of transportation is probably bicycle (besides walking, or possibly moped), it really isn't :) People are really eager to jump on the "ableist" accusation, aren't they?

> And even if you can adjust to the night, which is Moon and cloud-dependent anyway, that completely goes away every time a car goes past with its LED high beams.

It really doesn't, at least it didn't for me. It's true that for some seconds you'll see less, but your eyes will adjust faster after that than the initial adjustment when you go from a fully lit environment to unlit, even without direct moonlight.

I'm not arguing for completely dark cities, that'd be bananas. I was just giving another perspective about how we can (usually) adjust to darkness if we let our eyes be used to it. Of course we should have lights in cities so everyone (not just us with good night-sight) can navigate without issues.

I am night blind, among other things and cannot drive. If an area doesn't have street lights it's much more inaccessible to me, I become fully blind and I usually end up not going. Lights off is bad for me, end of story. Whether my ability to walk around at night is a factor here is a subjective decision. I understand people in my situation are a minority.

Wouldn’t a headlamp or a flashlight achieve the same purpose?

Also it's terrifying for safety; way too easy to assault someone in complete darkness.

I suspect your terror comes from lack of familiarity with natural light outdoors, and is a product of always having the lights on plus not being out of a house often.

The night is not 'complete darkness', we can generally see fairly well.

Also, I suspect your presumption on assault risk and assault rates comes from media, which is designed around building fear. Fear sells.

So I agree that you find the natural world terrifying, I just wish you didn't. Because the natural world is what we are fit for.

> Because the natural world is what we are fit for.

Good thing we live in cities then!

Let's put it this way. The fear is someone hiding in the shadows to jump a person, and then dragging the victim back into the shadows.

Bright lights on the street create more shadows. All you have to do is step out of the streetlight and no-one will see you, because the light-level contrast between the lit street and the surrounding space.

If there aren't any streetlights, so the surrounding space has the same illumination as the roadway, then that space is more present in more passerby's visual awareness.

So your proposed solution, "Streelights on every street" actually increases the risk you are so concerned about.

Completely the opposite.

Numerous studies show crime goes down when streetlights are turned off.

Simply put, you don't get scrotes hanging about in groups up to no good without lights, and anybody who is walking around is carrying a torch, making it obvious what they are doing (e.g. if you are breaking into a house, needing a torch instead of using a streetlight makes it obvious to everybody what you are doing).

No to mention a lack of streetlights makes if harder for somebody to hide in the shadows.

The real question to ask, is why people like yourself are 'terrified' [sic] of the dark. Statistics show the real truth of what you should be worried about.

> The real question to ask, is why people like yourself are 'terrified' [sic] of the dark.

Statistics show that people don't care about statistics but about confirmation bias and the media is eager to feed it.

I'm don't see why this is downvoted, I think it's an honest and legitimate question. What are pedestrians supposed to do when there's no car passing them right this moment? Carry their own torch? Rely on ambient light from the moon and reflected from nearby lit streets? Are we assuming there's such a high volume of cars that there's never a gap? I'm genuinely confused.

Where I live, even with streetlights, most people I see walking after dark carry a torch.

It’s easier than ever to carry one.

Honest question: Do you mean that most pedestrians are actually using (not just carrying on their person) a torch while walking along lit streets? I have essentially never seen that where I live, except some joggers have lights attached to their clothing but that's just so others can see them better. I can't imagine street lighting in an urban/suburban area being so bad that that would be necessary. That's a terrible state of affairs which, in itself, is a gross anti-pedestrian move.

(Or did you just factiously mean that people have smart phones on them which can function as torches?)

> except some joggers have lights attached to their clothing but that's just so others can see them better.

Yes, generally the purpose of the light is so others can see you.

My god, we spend all of our lives blasting lights into our eyes (some people call these lights "screens"), we've forgotten how to live without it!

I use the flashlight on my phone to flash at drivers to increase the likelihood that I am seen.

I mean I quite often see people holding a torch (or maybe a lit up phone) while they're walking.

I'm in an urban area, but it's not as well-lit as a downtown environment. There's street lights every 2-3 houses and they're not super bright.

I personally prefer this over a downtown-like bright environment since it makes it easier to sleep and the ambience is just better at night.

Clearly you have lived your entire life in a city under streetlights.

Here, if you go the the pub at night as the streetlights are turned off at midnight, so you take a torch (your phone as a backup). Its perfectly commonplace. To suggest this is "anti-pedestrian" is a bit silly. Rather, it's anti-light pollution.

> Carry their own torch

You state this like it is a bad idea.

If you have a cell phone, you have a torch.

If you are walking in a place where there are cars, having a light on you is a great way to reduce your risk of being hit. So yes, you should absolutely be carrying a torch if you are walking near streets after dark. Nordic countries teach this in kindergarden.

When I'm crossing a street after dark, I always flash my torch at potentially oncoming cars. Even if I'm at a lit crosswalk.

If you are walking in a place without cars, then the place probably doesn't have the infra to provide street lighting. You may want a torch, depends on the phase of the moon and your comfort level with dim lighting.

You are starting an unrelated conversation.

This comment chain started with someone suggesting that in cities lighting be turned off almost everywhere, and someone replied that pedestrians won't be able to clearly see where they're going without a torch (and I agreed). Where I live, no pedestrian in a city would ever need to use a torch to see where they're going.

You've posted a couple of replies saying that pedestrians should carry a torch so that cars can see them. Well, maybe, maybe not. But that's a different matter.

Get a flashlight?

> The experience is highly cognitively dissonant and counterintuitive.

Hitting the next homeless person and throwing them 10 meter in the space will be quite the experience.

Honestly, this is not shitty experience because of regulation, this is just councils cutting costs everywhere except their salaries. Los Angeles these last couple days has showed what it means to do that. You'll literally be on fire some day.