Why are street in the UK lamps Yellow and not white?

Question

There must be a reason why they decided on yellow and not white but i never asked myself till today!

Answer 1

The colour of the light from the bulds is dependant on the gas inside. Most of the old orange bulbs were installed during the oil crisis in the 1970's as these were the most economical at the time. As bulb technology has advanced the colour has improved but white bulbs are more expensive than the current yellow ones.

Answer 2

Depending if they are orange or yellow, they are either SOX. low pressure or SON high pressure sodium lamps. SOX gives the most light for the lowest wattage (running cost) along with the longest life, but has the worst colour rendering. These are gradually being changed to the nearly as good, SON lamps or better still Metal Halide lamps which are a whiter light, but not quite as efficient, although they have caught up a bit in the last few years. Better reflectors and optics in street lanterns have improved the light distribution by throwing more light down onto the road and not into the sky, this has allowed the use of lower wattage lamps without reducing the light at street level.

Answer 3

I have a bit of an issue with yellow streey lights, I hate them.They are Sodium vapour lamps and were introduced because they are low on energy.However they make winter a dull gloomy depressing time and as everything is bathed in yellow it is hard to make out much detail.
However that was at least 30 years ago and modern white lamps can be just as efficient.It is time they started using whiter lights to rid our streets of doom and gloom.It's the old story of British resistance to change.

Answer 4

I have noticed that in Liverpool...great big towering street lamps. The only reasons that I can think of is not to flood the people's houses with brilliance and allowing traffic safety should there be a fog. Just like some cars have yellow headlights.

Answer 5

Well, most places now have yellow, in varying shades.

That is because just white light has more energy than any other colour, since it's all the colours together, so it reflects more off things, which sends it out into the atmosphere. That then causes 'light pollution." Light pollution makes it very hard to see stars at night, and people like to see stars (especially NASA and the likes), so they install yellow light, which makes less light pollution.

Answer 6

I thinl its eithe cos yellow is cheaper,

or because "in the oldern days", we used to have candle lights inside the lamps as oppose to electrical lights-
a man would visit each light and light it with a candle every evening- cute or what?!
Thus the light which shon would always have a tinge of yellow. So when replacing them with electrical lights maybe they wanted them to settle with the streets and candle lit lights which hadn't been changed over yet, so they made all the bulbs yellow. No one has questioned them since.

Though I do know of many areas where they use white -or daylight bulbs as oppose to yellow toned ones.

Answer 7

Sodium lamps use less power than mercury or other white lights. White lights are still used on motorways and busy junctions.

Answer 8

Yellow low power sodium lights are used as they use less power and also they prevent the potential for glare when driving.

Answer 9

Round here they're amber orange. I suppose it was to avoid lighting up the interiors of the neighbouring houses too much. Because when I was a kid they were white. And I could literally read in bed by them!

Answer 10

england and other european countries suffer from alot of fog/mist, and white light bounces off the water particless in the fog/mist more than yellow light.
so the wight light can actually make the fog or mist appear even thicker.