Newswise — Street lighting can help prevent car crashes, injuries and fatalities, and might be a relatively low-cost way to reduce the burden of traffic accidents in low- and middle-income countries, according to a new review of studies.
However, most of the research on street lighting and traffic accidents is more than two decades old and occurred mostly in the United States, making it difficult to know how improved street lighting might affect accidents in developing countries, said researcher Fiona Beyer of the University of Newcastle, in England.
Beyer, who conducted the review with Katharine Ker of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said the findings might "encourage attention to the improvement of street lighting in lower-income countries as a road safety measure."
The review appears in the latest issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. Systematic reviews like this one draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.
The 16 review studies looked at lighting on streets from freeways to rural lanes. They compared accident data in (1) areas before and after lighting installation, (2) lit areas and non-lit areas and (3) nighttime and daytime. Drivers are almost twice as likely to have an accident in the dark as in daylight, the studies show.
In North America and Europe, where most of the studies took place, street lighting is widespread and probably not as much of a factor in traffic accidents as it once was. However, as more drivers crowd the roads in low-income countries, where traffic infrastructure can be minimal, lighting could help reduce traffic deaths, the reviewers suggest.
"The roads in these countries are already dangerous and they are only likely to become more so," said Beyer.
Some communities in the United States and Europe are moving in a different direction with street lighting, dimming and sometimes removing lights in an attempt to combat light pollution.
"The studies that I know about have consistently shown that street lighting promotes traffic safety," said Terry McGowan, chairperson of the technical task force for the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), a nonprofit organization that works globally to reduce light pollution.
Still, as lights have become efficient over the years, the lighting for some streets has exceeded the necessary minimal levels of illumination, McGowan said. In some communities, residents have asked for fewer lights or better fixtures to shield the glare.
"Street lighting in traffic lighting has also become less important because there is a new generation of automobile headlights that is four times more powerful than the old lights," said McGowan. "As more of these newer cars reach the road, we could reduce our reliance on street lighting."
The Cochrane Collaboration is an international nonprofit, independent organization that produces and disseminates systematic reviews of health care interventions and promotes the search for evidence in the form of clinical trials and other studies of interventions. Visit http://www.cochrane.org for more information.
Beyer FR, Ker K. Street lighting for preventing road traffic injuries. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 1.
RSS