Starry, starry nights?

The Mail has highlighted the 'fears' of an increase in road accidents when some motorway lights are turned off between the hours of midnight and five in the morning. Turning off some lights is meant to both save the environment and quite a bit of money.

According to the Campaign for Dark Skies the idea has already been trialled in some counties, with no increase in the number of road accidents and, where urban lights have been turned off it has been deemed a success ...

... "A year on year comparison for April 2006 to May 2007 [when street-lights were left on all night] and April 2007 to May 2008 [when street-lights were turned off at midnight] has shown that night-time crime has almost halved in Saffron Walden and reduced by over a third in Dunmow."

Mrs Rigby's experience is that, when it's raining and there are bright metal halide lights, it's almost impossible to see white road markings and also, at the end of a run of bright white lights, her eyes take a moment or two to adjust to the sudden darkness.

She has noticed that, in brightly lit urban areas, car headlights are almost invisible, and she thinks it's easier to see cars at night when there's no street lighting - simply because it's possible to see their headlight beams approaching a junction or from around a bend etc. etc.. It's because of this some of the unlit winding rural roads near Rigby Town seem safer to use during the darker winter months.

Mr Eugenides, however, spots an interesting conundrum

So we live in a society where head teachers make kids wear goggles to play conkers and policemen are forbidden from rescuing drowning people on health and safety grounds... and then they make you drive at 70mph in pitch darkness to save the polar bears?

Hmm, it almost makes Mrs R wonder who'll be first to trip over on a newly darkened motorway and then blame the lack of street lighting - and after that maybe all cars will have to be preceded by a pedestrian waving a red flag. Or did they do that once before?

....

Cow attack!

.
The Rambler's Association offers this advice in the case of a cow attack.

Do

• Try not to get between cows and their calves

• Be prepared for cattle to react to your presence, especially if you have a dog with you

• Move quickly and quietly, and if possible walk around the herd

• Keep your dog close and under effective control on a lead

Don’t

• Hang onto your dog. If you are threatened by cattle, let it go, as the cattle will chase the dog

• Put yourself at risk. Find another way around the cattle and rejoin the footpath as soon as possible

• Panic or run. Most cattle will stop before they reach you. If they follow just walk on quietly

Courtesy of Daily Telegraph.

Apparently farmers are advised not to put up signs saying, "Beware of the Bull". This is because, "If someone gets hurt, any good barrister will nail a farmer if he has suggested that he thought his animals were dangerous in the first place.

The article also mentions the dangers of being attacked by wasps, hornets, alpacas, adders and birds of prey.

Seems like the countryside is a dangerous sort of place, would we be safer strolling through a town?
.