LET THERE BE LESS LIGHT

Another rant I’m afraid…

I like the stars. I like being out on the Dorset hills at night, and seeing the milky way. More impressive yet are the stars seen from a mountainside in the Alps or Pyrenees. Or perhaps the best skies I have ever seen, from the inky blackness of the African bush, with the Southern Cross hanging overhead.

Trouble is, most of the time the stars can’t be seen as most of us live in urban areas where the street lights overwhelm the night light. Poole is not too bad though – on the beach and down by the harbour the stars can be discerned.

But – and here is my rant – we have become so conditioned to electric light that it seems no-one dares venture out in the dark without a torch. It has got particularly bad this winter. I think it’s the advent of very cheap, yet very powerful LED torches, and those phenomenally bright lights some cyclists use, and it drives me mad.

When I am out of an evening, walking the dog, or going for a run, I like to see the stars and I don’t want to be dazzled by some dark-phobic moron lumbering towards me in a poor impression of the angelic host. A couple of months back I very nearly came to blows with a cyclist whose ultra-bright light was directed directly at my head rather than towards the ground as he pedalled along the seafront. He might have thought it made life safer for him, but if people coming the other way are unable to see a thing in the glare of his super-strong beam all he is actually achieving is a decrease in the safety of others.

Runners with head torches. Dog walkers with torches. Dogs with flashing collars. Cyclists with light sabres. It drives me mad.

Turn off your torch, give your eyes five minutes to adjust and you’ll be amazed at what you can see. I have been walking and running in the dark for years and have yet to sustain a serious injury. But I have been tripping and stumbling as the torch brigade point their lights in my face.

The thing is, its becoming like the torch version of mutually assured destruction out there. If someone is going to dazzle you with their torch, really you need your own torch in order to compensate. Sometimes I feel the only way to survive my night hikes would be to take out a 10 million candle power halogen beam and blow the lights off all those other suckers.

And then there are those irritating people who don’t seem to realize their cars have hand brakes, and instead stand on the brakes at traffic lights, blinding those in the vehicle behind. This especially applies to you, you senseless Range Rover driver with your retina searing stop lights. Get your foot off the pedal and use the hand brake!

Rant over.

Just turn off the lights.