Street Lights and polarities

[Brentx]

Ok so I don't know if I am the only one here that this happens to, but I will give it a shot.

Does it seem that street lights turn off when you walk or drive under them at night?

We were talking about this at work today, and someone had mentioned about polarities with the electrical fields in our body messing with the street lights.

It's kinda weird, but it seems there are a couple of street lights on the freeway that will always turn off at night when I drive under them. There are also a couple that seem to turn off on the streets by my house too.

Does anyone have any input on why this happens? Or is it just a coincidence?

 

[imported_iNGEN]

It's coincidence. Most street lamps have an internal kill switch to increase the service life of both the lamp and and electronics inside. I don't remember what the switching criteria are, but I'm inclined to believe it is thermal. Help me out folks in any of you know. But in short, the property you are describing is a design feature not an impact of your presence. Field disruption caused by your presence is too insignificant to have any casually visible impact on the lamp and its performance.

 

[dkozloski]

Street lights are turned on and off by sunlight sensors or by a remote command circuit. About anything else you're seeing is a tired metal halide, mercury, or sodium vapor light signaling its demise by cycling on and off.

 

[CycloWizard]

There's a light in my neighborhood that turns off whenever I drive towards it with my headlights on. I always assumed this was because they didn't put the light sensor on top of the light, so it picked up the light from my car's headlights and the light thought it was daytime. It does not turn off when I walk underneath it, so it's definitely at least linked to my car in some fashion. If not caused by my headlights, then maybe it's all the vibrations from the old, worn engine.

 

[Rubycon]

Most photo controllers on the streetlights have no delay. A carefully aimed laser pointer will reveal this nicely.

High pressure sodium lamps will shut off and repeat the cycle at the end of the lamp life. This is due to the arc not being able to sustain itself at the input voltage. Class P chokes (ballasts by some) have a thermal switch embedded in the windings that will open and squelch the light while the thing cools down.

HID lamps will NOT come back on instantly like LED, incandescent, FL/CFL because the arc tube must cool down sufficiently to restrike. They do have instant restrike lamps but these are actually bulbs containing a pair of arc tubes in the same envelope. They are expensive and only required where a total failure of lighting would be unacceptable.

But yes in a nutshell it's most likely a coincidence.