First time I hear about streetlight theft. Wow, these people have guts.

I suppose the security mechanism might work with some people, but a clever thief will just wear a ski mask or something to hide his identity, and he will hide his vehicle's license plate.

Honestly, the kind of people who are going to steal lamp posts for the aluminum are going to throw rocks or shoot at the solar cells.

@MGR: Really, it's not all that gutsy. People used to steal aluminum guard rails and signs before they started making them out of galvanized steel. The easy answer is to stop making your lamp posts out of aluminum. As per the other article, that would make more environmental sense too (less NaF emissions).

Amazing... In a city as poor and messed up as Baltimore I can't beleive theire spending money on crazy robo-cop nonsense like this! $5000 for 5 is $25000 fo which they could hire a couple people to hang around call the cops if they see anyone messing with the lights, of take their photos, or something...

how about addressing poverty with the same ingenuity.

Interesting approach. Wonder how effective it will be as compared to discreet hidden silent cameras in various location so no thief would know when and where he's being watched?

Yeah, we're very proud of our city... the poles were stolen by crews of men dressed as municipal employees, and they capped the wires and everything. It would help if our scrap metal dealers didn't turn a blind eye to people bringing in light poles and guardrails and hundreds of feet of new copper pipe...

I have to say, too; solar powered shouty lights are a damn sight better than those idiotic flashing police camera boxes they've been putting up in poor neighborhoods.

That is the stupidest thing I have ever seen in my life. When it senses motion? If there is motion that means something is about to steal the lamp? It's a street light. How many people or animals just pass by it? It takes your picture? Does it? In another hidden camera or is it in the thing the person is about to steal? Maybe its radios the image? What a complete waste of money. At least it's solar and won't waste electricity. The local government must be complete idiots with no imagination, intelligence and respect for the local citizens at all.

The aforementioned "flashing police camera boxes" are a complete waste of money; these are, comparatively, a drop in the bucket for us.

But yeah, the City Council doesn't really have any respect for the citizenry at all. Despite the fact that I commute by Light Rail every day, I am compelled to move my car every 48 hours because of a line in the City Charter meant to discourage abandoned vehicles. If I were rich or lucky enough to have a garage, I'd be fine.

There was an item in the news last year about a pilot scheme somewhere in the UK of a for a simillar system to this.

The difference here was that the motion detector was set for identifying groups of people "hanging around". When it detected such a thing the speaker would tell them to "DISPERSE" or "MOVE AWAY", or something equally inane and laughable.

It seems one of the big paraniod obsession we have at the moment is with groups of kids congregating in public, this was meant to address that "problem".

I'm glad to say I've heard nothing more of it, and hope I never will.

Okay, yeah, it's a very bad design flaw to make it shout at everything that moves. I guarantee you that if there were one outside the door of my house, and I passed it every day, it would be disabled very quickly.

As far as steel lamposts go, they may create less emission to make and be less inspiring of theft, but they also last longer than steel, require less maintenance and may even be more fuel-efficient to ship and install since they'd be lighter. I don't think the solution is to stop using aluminum (besides, most new aluminum contains a good deal of recycled aluminum).

I think the real solution is either to make posts that are so insanely beautiful that they inspire people in the neighborhood to protect them: "hey, punk, drop the saw, that's *our* pretty lampost!"

And in general some kind of neighborhood watch might help. Or paying the homeless to look for thieves. Or just using a wireless enabled camera with no verbal warning--why warn the thieves if you can catch them. Or putting rfid chips in side the posts so they can be tracked. the minute one moves you send the cops. that's an easy fix.

So yeah, it's a dumb idea. But someone liked it.

There is nothing wrong with the design. I am sure a combination solar light, motion detector and warning device (that can be turned off) makes sense for say a private lot where there is no security at night. In the public, on a street, it makes no sense. RFID? Wireless camera? Solutions like that are expensive. They only installed 5. How many street lights in Baltimore? How many more of the stolen lights could have been replaced by not wasting money on that? Aluminum is not so great either. There is no causal link yet but it probably causes Alzheimer. The two lights (middle looks okay) look like light polluters too. When was the last time you saw the Milky Way at night or more than a few stars? Just because it's solar is no cover at all for a stupid idea.

In the do you think that's bad category, ignoring noise from traffic and planes and of course inside noise from AC and computers... I would say the worse isolated story I heard recently was a device that played a high pitched noise only teenagers can hear to make them buzz off. The whole idea of targeting people with sound is in the labs. What you saw in Minority Report in not far off. Bad government projects tend to go away but advertising is forever.

"In Japan, for instance, noise pollution caused by public loudspeaker messages and other forms of city noise have forced many Tokyo citizens to wear earplugs as they go about their daily lives."

That's from Decibel "Hell: The Effects of Living in a Noisy World."

What about using lightpipes? How would they compare in cost and lighting area to these "security cameras"?


I remember reading about them years ago (and using the "breakthrough" electrodeless lamps, something Tesla invented even further back) and other than a few high-profile uses in government buildings or tunnels, I have yet to see them used much at all in North America. Wouldn't they also be more efficient, like the growing use of LED's everywhere?

XYZ: "high pitched noise only teenagers can hear to make them buzz off. The whole idea of targeting people with sound is in the labs."

er, it's way past the in-the-lab stage XY, They've gone MAD longtime ago and have uused sonic divices in both Iraq and NOLA. but these are way more invasive and painful than some recording saying "Please don't steal me. I'm a light post."

and while i hate to admit it, i live in a rough neighbourhood and feel that CCTVs would actually help A LOT of people live normal lives, whereas now they can't because of thugs and crackheads.. and while i feel for these people too, i know that CCTVs would help the 70 year-old man feel safe to walk down the street at noon . And i do hope that we go further with all of this. if Bruce Sterling ever runs the world, we'll have more than CCTVs on those posts, we'll have those fancy drones that monitor blood pressure, biorhythms and voices and when someone is about to cause a crime they swoop down and cover the perp with super glue 'till the authorities turn up.... That's what I want (just so long as certain things are made legal before they implement)!!

I don't think light piping applies to out door night lighting. I am only aware of it being used in passive day time lighting for indoors. As for Tesla's plans for wireless power, while I love the guy and think he is great and deserve more credit for inventing radio and AC vs Edison and Marconi, it was largely a failure. I also don't like the idea of his wireless solution. Studies on power lines show they might cause cancer. I also think he Tesla let politics get in the way. Just for a lamp post, I don't think there is any better power solution than solar by itself. Whatever they do they would have to build an infrastructure otherwise. A great way I heard to deliver power related to lighting was with fiber optics and high powered lasers. The way high temperature super conductors are going, I don't think the metal electrical grid will be replaced anytime soon. They are just too efficient. LED, solar is probably the best solution. Solarone Solutions is doing some interesting things there. Don't forget about light pollution either. I am no expert on solar lighting but I don't think the solutions have to be so wild like talking, wireless, that use power from the air or something. How about a solar street light that pays for itself by putting energy back into the grid? You could also recollect the light because most of it is not used. Self cleaning or radio if it's broken so there is no maintenance. They should use that motion detector to watch for passersby and light the street MORE because most of that energy is wasted. How about no street lights at all? I know it helps with crime but I always think it's strange that on any street corner 3 AM there is light some where and most people are asleep with lights turned off in the house. All of you are throwing out these ideas and local government tries things because of one basic mistake. They assume change, development what's good and right means more complicated, more intrusive. It does not have to be. Sci Fi dreams of metal cities are insane. Plant a tree there instead to help with air pollution... better yet, insert that jelly fish gene in that tree to make it glow :) That would get some attention.

Lee, however you feel about cameras in public places, I think we all must agree, they should be manned and not automatic if they are going to do something even if it's just yelling at you. I don't know what Stirling planned but if that super glue gun had just a motion detector, it might be that 70 year old man that got hurt and not helped. I don't think there is a camera because I don't think those things are on a grid of any kind. Even if there were a camera locally, why would anyone check it? If the post is stolen, the camera is gone or it's just pictures of someone standing at the light waiting to cross the street or a raccoon. It's not exactly like a stop light camera. I don't see how it would ever hold up in court. Even if they caught the guy with a chain saw. He could just say I was going to cut down a tree somewhere else. If you support cameras, don't support this. It will probably hurt the cause. This is really stupid.

XYZ: Yes, you are only thinking of passive lighting for light-pipes. See the following links for powered lighting by light-pipe:

http://eetd.lbl.gov/newsletter/CBS_NL/NL6/S-Lamp.html

http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/Futures/LF-Electrodeless/index.asp


I mentioned Tesla not for broadcast power but for the single-electrode bulbs he invented (he may have invented electrodeless bulbs, too, but I am going on my memory on this at the moment...) Tesla invented far more than three-phase motors and a/c current. Look up his patents sometime and see for yourself :)


One thing that came from his research on broadcast power was how the very high-frequency electricity he was generating would travel around a wire instead of through it. Do that on the inside of an insulated metal pipe and you wouldn't have the loss associated with standard 50/60 hz a/c power transmission lines. I'm really surprised the power companies don't use this method if only for efficient power transmission. I'm not an engineer or a physicist, but wouldn't that also cut down on the large magnetic fields associated with current high-power lines? (Those magnetic fields are the source of possible cancers resulting from living too near these transmission lines.)


Hope that helps clarify things :)

Eric, let me amend my statement. I have not seen active light piping at the level of a city. If you have information about that I would be interested. I am not a physicist either but even if the intensity did not degrade over distance to make it inefficient, I would not consider it a good option because 1. the station with the massive bulb probably would not use solar and 2. you would have to create, maintain a network of fiber optics. I am VERY aware of Tesla's many patents. Light or power it was probably a failure and he did not understand the politics. Was it and probably is still better? Probably. He died more than 60 years ago, invented most long before he died and many still look at his patents today. People don't decide to use the best option. They do stupid things like install street lights that scream don't steal me. It could be dirty politics like a pay off or just honest people making a mistake. There are two sides to the ethanol debate for example and both are right in their own way. No one really ever knows and in the end it just comes down to who has the power.

You would think the thieves would just wears masks. Then they wouldn't care if any pictures were taken.