The American Medical Association is concerned that the glare, the high blue light content of “energy efficient” LED streetlights being rolled out across America, might be suppressing drivers’ night vision, and causing other harmful health effects.
AMA Adopts Community Guidance to Reduce the Harmful Human and Environmental Effects of High Intensity Street Lighting
For immediate release:
June 14, 2016
CHICAGO – Strong arguments exist for overhauling the lighting systems on U.S. roadways with light emitting diodes (LED), but conversions to improper LED technology can have adverse consequences. In response, physicians at the Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA) today adopted guidance for communities on selecting among LED lighting options to minimize potential harmful human and environmental effects.
Converting conventional street light to energy efficient LED lighting leads to cost and energy savings, and a lower reliance on fossil-based fuels. Approximately 10 percent of existing U.S. street lighting has been converted to solid state LED technology, with efforts underway to accelerate this conversion.
“Despite the energy efficiency benefits, some LED lights are harmful when used as street lighting,” AMA Board Member Maya A. Babu, M.D., M.B.A. “The new AMA guidance encourages proper attention to optimal design and engineering features when converting to LED lighting that minimize detrimental health and environmental effects.”
High-intensity LED lighting designs emit a large amount of blue light that appears white to the naked eye and create worse nighttime glare than conventional lighting. Discomfort and disability from intense, blue-rich LED lighting can decrease visual acuity and safety, resulting in concerns and creating a road hazard.
In addition to its impact on drivers, blue-rich LED streetlights operate at a wavelength that most adversely suppresses melatonin during night. It is estimated that white LED lamps have five times greater impact on circadian sleep rhythms than conventional street lamps. Recent large surveys found that brighter residential nighttime lighting is associated with reduced sleep times, dissatisfaction with sleep quality, excessive sleepiness, impaired daytime functioning and obesity.
The detrimental effects of high-intensity LED lighting are not limited to humans. Excessive outdoor lighting disrupts many species that need a dark environment. For instance, poorly designed LED lighting disorients some bird, insect, turtle and fish species, and U.S. national parks have adopted optimal lighting designs and practices that minimize the effects of light pollution on the environment.
Recognizing the detrimental effects of poorly-designed, high-intensity LED lighting, the AMA encourages communities to minimize and control blue-rich environmental lighting by using the lowest emission of blue light possible to reduce glare. The AMA recommends an intensity threshold for optimal LED lighting that minimizes blue-rich light. The AMA also recommends all LED lighting should be properly shielded to minimize glare and detrimental human health and environmental effects, and consideration should be given to utilize the ability of LED lighting to be dimmed for off-peak time periods.
The guidance adopted today by grassroots physicians who comprise the AMA’s policy-making body strengthens the AMA’s policy stand against light pollution and public awareness of the adverse health and environmental effects of pervasive nighttime lighting.
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Media Contact:
AMA Media and Editorial
Pressroom: (312) 239-4991
Email: media@ama-assn.org
Read more: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/news/news/2016/2016-06-14-community-guidance-street-lighting.page
Perhaps city authorities were so eager to embrace “energy efficiency”, they never took the time to check whether their new green street lighting systems were safe.
Hey, you try UK streets with no lighting where the local government can’t afford the electricity bills any more where I have accidents just while walking along cycle paths at night. Thank you greenpeace
Funny thing is, the new fangled LED bulbs don’t seem to be leading to the local government switching the light back on. Could that be because they are not as cost efficient as existing technology for people who cannot afford a large capital outlay, or the greens have simply managed to destroy a “public good” with their policies?
Here’s another question: For self-driving cars, are their sensors better suited to any particular part of the light spectrum?
I’ve learned that some municipalities have been suffering from vandalism/theft of their street lights. I’m hearing that thieves especially like the copper. Municipalities are apparently refusing to repair their vandalized street lights, since they would only be vandalized again. Some curvy expressways through the center of town strike me as particularly harrowing to drive on at night without working street lights.
I changed all my interior lights to LED – energy cost saving was but one reason – LED bulbs basically last forever – I am tired of the continual need to replace bulbs. Especially in ceiling fixtures – changing them strikes me as far more dangerous than living under lED lights. They also produce no heat, making them “Use anywhere” bulbs. They can’t burn anyone, either. Or start a fire. LED Xmas trees would probably save many lives.
While LED lights are 4-5 times more efficient than incandescent lamps, they most certainly DO produce heat. Adequate cooling of the semiconductor die is a very important design consideration for LED lamps.
These LED lights are harmless and produce substantial energy savings when properly chosen and used. They are available in incandescent-like 2700, halogen-like 3000 and moonlight-like 3500 K color temperatures as well as more-blue-rich higher ones.
The problem is from using this technology excessively for increase of illumination, by obtaining more light and by obtaining a spectrum more-rich in mid-blue to mid-green wavelengths that are more visible to human scotopic (night) vision – which significantly affects apparent illumination by streetlighting in the usual mesopic vision conditions, where both scotopic and photopic vision are significant.
Here is a good article on effects of Blue light.
http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-side
Send in the over priced, over subsidized, self-driving cars, with ambulance chasers
I know blue light from some “modern” vehicle headlights screw up my nite vision coming at me. PERHAPS I’ve noticed the latest headlights, thankfully, have abandoned the blue tendency & are more like the old. It’s been known forever that blue light screws up nite vision and I don’t know why those “blue” headlights were ever allowed. Red rear lights on vehicles are red for a reason….
The article omitted many benefits of LED street lighting that substantially offset the negatives mentioned in the article. Apparent light and visibility can be increased at lower energy costs. Optics can be used in almost any type of application to focus the light and reduce glare to a far greater degree than with conventional lamps. “Visual acuity” just should not be an issue. My company provided lighting for the new east span of the Oakland Bay bridge. The roadway lighting fixtures point AWAY from the drivers to eliminate most glare. As for residential use, proper optics and shielding for LED lighting SHOULD allow for very sharp “cutoff” of light so far less of it “spills” into the surrounding area compared to traditional street lighting. Looking at before and after pictures dramatically demonstrates the degree to which this can be achieved. In most cases there is thus no reason for it to be affecting local residents unless it is poorly designed. (Roadway lighting is not a market emphasis for us. We have, however, done some important architectural lighting projects where achieving very sharp cutoff/low spill is beneficial for the surrounding environment including, for example, Mount Rushmore.)
Years ago I lived in one of the few cities lit by gaslight: South Orange, NJ. We were so proud of this, a gas lamp was our village’s logo!
It is like walking round in soft moonlight, quite attractive. Yet peaceful. A slight warm glow.
Gaslights using light only from flames has color temperature generally in the low-mid 2000s, a little higher than the actual flame temperature because the emissivity of sub-micrometer or around-1-micrometer carbon particles is to some extent, even if only partial, related to Rayleigh scattering. Gaslights with mantles have color temperature generally in the low 3000s to around 3500 K and often a little more greenish than blackbody.
Somewhat related, LED traffic lights (green, yellow, red) become invisible when covered by snow, unlike incandescent bulbs LED’s don’t generate enough heat to melt any snow blown onto them, a real safety problem.
I noticed that too. I have seen on E-Bay that some LED headlights are now being sold that contain heating elements in the lens similar to a modern cars rear window defroster.
This should be fixable with a thermostatically controlled heating element.
I remember reading a few articles about this being a problem for municipalities in northern states. I would imagine that manual clearing would be necessary in places where temperatures remain below freezing.
I do not know if any of the lights in my area have been switched to LEDs, but there are some newer ones that look “different”, for lack of a better word. I personally think they are harder to see/differentiate (when another traffic light is a bit beyond the first), but I have no idea if it is a different design or if it is the bulb. The newest light replacement I have seen now has pure black backgrounds rather than yellow. I do not think I will like it in the dark.
I’m sure that if the AMA existed when street lights were first installed they would’ve complained about people’s night vision being destroyed.
It is well known that the left captured the AMA generations ago.
Dan Kurt
The LED streetlights i have seen have all been a huge improvement compared to the previos high pressure mercury and high/low pressure sodium street lights:
Higher and more uniform illuminance helps you spot pedestrians on a much longer distance and help pedestrians spot whatever lurks ahead earlier too.
Thats what streetlights are for!
Staring at them can affect you night vision and I beleive them when they say you can set up a lab experiment showing bluish white LED light is worse then yellowish white LED for “circadian sleep rythms”. But unless you have a particular powerful streetlight shinig at your window and you don’t use blinds, is it likely to be a problem for the residents?
I advice using the most efficient LEDs (Bluish White) in large and efficient reflector system. Some glare yes but the lowest cost for a given illumination spec. . By all means, if you have money to burn spend them on AMA lighting consultants and designer luminaires.
Off topic but only slightly. We’ve got quite a few LED lights in our house and the new ones have a nice spectrum that is somewhere between a regular incandescent and a halogen bulb. Big improvements in the last few years.
These lamps produce heat (not that much but the total consumption is only 9W). The heat comes from the base and not the LEDs. I wonder how much power is consumed inverting the household AC to a low-voltage DC. I haven’t been able to detect any heat from LED flashlights, and I’m further wondering if houses of the future will contain low-voltage DC circuits for the LED lighting systems. Cabling could use much lighter gauge wire and thinner insulation – you could even hide it in stick-on tape for surface mounting.
I keep thinking about the AC/DC issue but never enough to start digging up facts. Just naturally lazy I suppose.
Typically one of the ’65W’ replacement LED lamps will emit about 1W of light energy so about 8W is heat compared with the original lamp which will produce 64W of heat!
Radio too. With LED light bulb revolution say goodbye to many distance radio communications from 30-300Mhz. While they thrive on DC it is often achieved through the use of really radio-noisy often insufficiently shielded switching power supplies or forced rectification. And sometimes brief high current pulses to ‘cheat’ higher light output without causing overheating.
Our city has LED traffic lights and even moderately strong FM stations disappear completely at intersections. I have no doubt that this interference affects radios of emergency services too, A whole lotta FCC Title 47, Part 15 violations are going on. Here are noisy radio spectra from cheapies and a street light interfering with amateur radio. It’s not limited to ‘cheap’ products.
Mario Motta made this nice presentation about “Human and environmental effects of poorly designed night lighting”. http://artificiallightatnight.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/0/5/37053463/motta-mario.pdf
More generally, the Belgian Superior Health Council gave these concrete recommendations about the use of LED lamps at home :
To the attention of the industry
1.Manufacturers should limit the fraction of blue LED light as much as possible, especially in screens, night lamps, bedroom lighting.
To the attention of the government
2.Only LED lights of risk category 0 and 1 (see European Norm EN 62471), should be available to the general public on the market.
3.Children under 8 years must be discouraged to use toys with LED screens, at least at the end of the day.
4.Each LED lamp should have been labeled with information on the recommended use, risk and any contraindications (eg. desk lamp, bedside lamp or nursery).
5.The general public should be given information on:
– risk of using LED lighting: direct lighting or close LED lamps, especially with prolonged use for children younger than 8 years, people operated on cataract or without lens and persons suffering from macular degeneration, photodermatoses or using photosensitive medication or cosmetics (certain medicines, creams or ointments);
– risk of using devices with a LED screen: use by children (under 8 years), prolonged or close use during the evening or at night.
6.Due to the lack of data, further investigation is needed:
– the risks of LED lighting for the eyes and the skin in relation to the type of lighting, exposure pattern and characteristics of the person (healthy or with a condition that poses a risk);
– fluctuations (stroboscopic effect) of the light intensity of the LEDs and their possible impact on health;
– aging effects of the spectrum determining phosphors in LEDs.”
Source (report written in Dutch): http://www.health.belgium.be/sites/default/files/uploads/fields/fpshealth_theme_file/hgr_9341_advies_led_a4.pdf
It is very strange that, without any justification regarding health and environment, the reddish glow of incandescents and the orange glow of sodium lamps is now replaced by the blue light of LEDs. Never before, manufacturers were so dangerous to our health and greedy for gain as nowadays!
Modern “white” LEDs are ultraviolet LED with a fluorescent phosphor coating. The colour of the light is controlled by the mix of phosphors.
Unfortunately, all the cheap LEDs from China are blue-white, I presume because the phosphors are cheaper.
LED can exactly match LP sodium, by using the older-style monochromatic orange or Yellow LEDS.
The usual white LEDs don’t have a UV-emitting chip but a blue-emitting one. The phosphor is designed and applied to not absorb all of the blue light. The remaining blue light mixes with the red-to-green band emitted by usual LED phosphors to result in white light.
And that excessive 440 nm blue causes insomnia….
I have worked with LED’s for years. Shortly after the introduction of white LED’s, doctors began warning of the dangers. There is much more at stake than glare. The particular wavelength of blue that is dominant in white LED’s is as harmful to your eyes as ultraviolet light. While a white LED may appear to your eye to have the same color temperature as a fluorescent lamp, the actual spectrum has a huge spike in the blue with LED’s. Some low cost LED’s bother my sensitive eyes almost immediately and I cannot use them. The kind in cheap flashlights for example. But I seem to do ok with name brand soft white lights from major manufacturers.
Hopefully the fad of using blue LED’s as indicators in electronic devices and decorative lighting will pass, because even these low power sources are not completely safe for your eyes.
There is still a lot of controversy over the mechanisms that are involved in saturation of night vision and the recovery times involved:
http://stlplaces.com/night_vision_red_myth/
Another consideration is surgical correction of cataracts using silicone lenses, which do not block UV as does a natural (carbon-based) lens. The eye is sensitive to UV (although not in terms of imaging), and too much can cause ‘sunburn’ of the retina and loss of visual sensitivity. Chromophores in the epithelial cells of the retina, which are not wired in to the optical nerves, absorb UV and perform chemosynthesis to produce melatonin, which affects the circadian rhythyms. https://www.amazon.com/Health-Light-extraordinary-Affects-emotional/dp/0898040981
So-called ‘amber vision’ lenses will block the UV and some of the blue light, while letting all of the red. orange, yellow, and green light in – enough for good visual acuity. Wearing these under the LED streetlights will allow quicker accommodation to darkness and recovery of night vision after they are removed.
Submarine commanders used to wear red goggles before going above deck at night to preserve night vision.
I find yellow light less pleasant to see and to see by than “pure white” or more blue light. Maybe I’m an alien.
I will say one thing about newer cars – the headlights are often *very* misfocused. For a while there, BMW had headlights had a hard cutoff with their projectors to minimize glare for oncoming drivers (with low beams), but that seems to have gone away.
If the future is yellow, I’m going to be a very unhappy camper.
There is something fishy about this press release…the language in it is not standard English, sentence structure is odd. It is however actually on the real official American Medical Association website.
Best example?:
“The guidance adopted today by grassroots physicians who comprise the AMA’s policy-making body…”
The AMA’s policy-making body is composed of grassroots physicians???? What the heck are grassroots physicians when they’re at home?
More?:
“…to minimize and control blue-rich environmental lighting by using the lowest emission of blue light possible…”
“…operate at a wavelength that most adversely suppresses melatonin during night….”
“…blue-rich LED lighting can decrease visual acuity and safety, resulting in concerns [???] and creating a road hazard….”
I thought the article would turn our to be a spoof by third world hackers….but they are apparently serious, about the LED light anyway — but not about editing to make their releases professional.
Looks like normal English to me, and I have no problem understanding it.
Put a warm color filter over the lights (such as rose/orange colored).