Comment by a_e_k

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

It’s easier than ever to carry one.

> 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.