Recently, a large scale survey type study has been made in the Netherlands for the relation between road lighting, accidents and crime. The lightning for all roads and streets, and all registered day and night time accidents, in serveral Dutch cities (about 600,000 inhabitants in total) have been analyzed. The results did show a clear but not a strong, relation between the light level and the accidents. For one medium size city, in addition all registered day and night criminal acts have been analyzed. A clear relation between the light level and the crime rate was found. Between about 1 lux and 5 lux, the night/day ratio of registered crime was reduced from over 8 to under 2; at light levels over about 5 lux, this ratio seems to level off at about 1.5.
Abstract