Underseer
Contributor
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Video Summary
A lot of municipalities have been replacing incandescent bulbs in traffic lights with LED lights. This has a lot of advantages.
The list of advantages of LED lights is large, and the cost savings significant, but because someone found one particular case in which incandescent bulbs are better, some places are avoiding the upgrade to LED.
Even if heaters in the traffic lights cost more energy than incandescent bulbs, they only need to be run when snowfall is heavy enough to require their use. Even with the added energy consumption and added maintenance of heaters, you're still looking at significant cost savings, but humans are stupid. Find one little thing wrong with an upgrade, and instead of looking for the most sensible solution, many humans use it as an excuse to keep things as they are. Because change is scary for some people.
A big part of this problem is sensationalist "news" articles that clearly exploit the curmudgeon in all of us ("See? Them thar new-fangled LED traffic lights is more trouble then they's worth! Ah dun tole ya! Didn't ah dun tole yah?").
Video Summary
A lot of municipalities have been replacing incandescent bulbs in traffic lights with LED lights. This has a lot of advantages.
- Incandescent bulbs burn out more frequently, which means more maintenance cost replacing them. A typical intersection has a lot of lights, so you may be looking at replacing incandescent bulbs an average of every 2 months at a given intersection.
- Old-fashioned traffic lights are made to be opened so that the incandescent bulbs can be replaced. This means that the inside can get dirty, which in turn makes the light less bright, which makes them less safe, and requires even more maintenance.
- LED lights use about 1/10th as much energy. Considering the large number of bulbs in every intersection, you're talking about a significant expense in electricity over the course of a year.
- Because LEDs are so much more efficient, they give off less heat, which means they are more likely to accumulate snow when there is heavy snowfall and strong wind.
The list of advantages of LED lights is large, and the cost savings significant, but because someone found one particular case in which incandescent bulbs are better, some places are avoiding the upgrade to LED.
Even if heaters in the traffic lights cost more energy than incandescent bulbs, they only need to be run when snowfall is heavy enough to require their use. Even with the added energy consumption and added maintenance of heaters, you're still looking at significant cost savings, but humans are stupid. Find one little thing wrong with an upgrade, and instead of looking for the most sensible solution, many humans use it as an excuse to keep things as they are. Because change is scary for some people.
A big part of this problem is sensationalist "news" articles that clearly exploit the curmudgeon in all of us ("See? Them thar new-fangled LED traffic lights is more trouble then they's worth! Ah dun tole ya! Didn't ah dun tole yah?").