Look I am probably gonna get some flakk for this opinion but I don't care honestly.

SPANWIRE STREET LIGHTS SUCK.

I was hoping that when LED took over they would steadily dissappear but no.... instead they cram an LED into the same exact junk light fixture and pump those out and now they are even WORSE than they were before.

Back when they were mercury they were okay because the bulbs were generally diffuse and the lumen output was lower. So they did the job perfectly of just showing the intersection was THERE without trying to illuminate every molecule of dust and eviscerated bug stuck to the windshield. But the sodium ones and OMG THE LED ONES ARE HORRIBLE pieces of crap.

They throw light EVERYWHERE including into my eyes. But the pattern that is actually on the ground is just a hot spotted circle. And in storms... forget about seeing BEYOND the light. Ain't happening. Because they HALO out and literally just make a wall of light that blocks everything but the section of road directly under them. And the LED ones just AMPLIFY this effect. The sodium ones atleast somewhat cut through the fog. The LEDs scatter light EVERYWHERE.

I don't know whos bright idea it was to even bother lighting up rural intersections with these things but they need to be removed and replaced with FCO lights on poles off the side of the road.


Only places spanwire are acceptable is VERY close together in a city or town main stretch where there is no dark spotting. Everything else is improper installation as far as i am concerned.

Funnily enough bucket NEMA lights on arms I dont have this gripe with. Because they are mounted far higher on the SIDE of the road. Where they belong. Instead of glare bombing out the center of the road.

That all being said. I would still add a span wire sodium or mercury light to the collection and install it PROPERLY at my place. But they almost never are proper in the wild.

If road engineers INSIST on having a "Marker" light in the center of the road to mark an intersection then just put a lighted up box sign with the crossroads hazard sign on it or something. It would do the job far better than this glare bomb crap they got going on.

At intersections they could’ve used a beacon style traffic signal. Beacons were originally intended to “mark” or bring attention intersections, particularly on lower volume roads or in rural areas. They don’t really cost too much either, even long term.

I also believe that they are good for lighting very narrow streets, where columns can't be mounted, such as in Europe. What do you think of FCO catenary lights, like this one?

https://www.aecilluminazione.it/product/compass-ts/

I am sure those would work fine here. make them 2500k or 3000k and mount them either super high in the air or pretty low and I am sure they would out perform the UCC lights by a large margin. bucket light optics don't belong in the MIDDLE of the road. atleast not with modern tech like LED or HPS. Mercury ones are quite pleasant. but unfortunately that era is mostly over.

Common practice for rural intersections here is to use one or two cobraheads at opposing corners and then add a spanwire flashing 4 way beacon if it requires extra attention. It works but I suppose it costs more than a single spanwire light.

Spanwire LED bucket lights, especially in 4000K or 5000K sound terrible. Bucket lights have no optical control and they probably should have used a spanwire gumball instead if they wanted to keep the spanwire.

 I have seen some of the HPS span-wires in Michigan and YES , they DO suck !  There's even some of the LED versions on the freeway at the entrance/exit to rest areas !

Common practice for rural intersections here is to use one or two cobraheads at opposing corners and then add a spanwire flashing 4 way beacon if it requires extra attention. It works but I suppose it costs more than a single spanwire light.

Spanwire LED bucket lights, especially in 4000K or 5000K sound terrible. Bucket lights have no optical control and they probably should have used a spanwire gumball instead if they wanted to keep the spanwire.

Some intersections don't quite need a flashy light but may need some other indication of their existence. in my experience the flashers also are blinding at times because most of them lack any form of photo control to dim them down at night. the yellow LED flashers are blinding for no reason. An illuminated box sign would serve nicely. or just a standard FCO street light on a pole. or an FCO spanwire mounted at the correct height to prevent glare through the windshield.

I have seen some of the HPS span-wires in Michigan and YES , they DO suck !  There's even some of the LED versions on the freeway at the entrance/exit to rest areas !

I love HPS and wish I could say they worked well in span wires. but 50 watts is too dim for an orange street light. and 150 watts is a glare bomb. not nearly as bad as the LEDs but they just don't belong in bucket optics in the center of roads mounted at the height they usually are. they at least function OKAYish in dry conditions and they are okay in small towns where they are strung really close together. LED is just JUNK. crappy beam pattern and complete light wall right in the center of the road during rain/snow/fog. it is honestly dangerously terrible. they need to be removed.

bucket style span wire died with Mercury and lower wattage sodium. time to move on to FCO stuff.

Most LED stuff is FCO, but is at the same time the worst in regards to creating the wall of light. Here we have virtually no spanwire lanterns, it is virtually all normal installations on poles. This does not make any difference

HPS is not that bad even if the lantern would be stuck on your windshield, just because of what HPS light is

@Ash I do agree with your HPS statement but I do still believe they belong on poles not strung above the road.


The LEDs on the side of the road are also guilty of the "wall of light" effect however the majority if the light is offset on the side of the road instead of directly above the head. Atleast in the installations I observe locally.

To be quite honest I would prefer ZERO LED street lighting in the country side. You would think with how greedy corporations have got they would just remove the lights completely stating "energy savings" and "eco friendly". But they instead put night vision ruining devices in the middle of nowhere. The sodiums and mercuries were acceptable because of either color or dimness.

It all depends on the application. In my neighborhood, all PL street lamps were retrofitted with LED units. Those are every bit as easy on the eyes as the PLs that originally were in there.

There are also cone shaped lanterns. The new LED cones are kinda glare-y. This seems to be because of the refraction pattern on the cone. The retrofitted cones don't have this issue. The new ones use a vertical line pattern, the old ones just some sort of random rippled/marbled pattern.

I haven't seen span wire installations in a while. There used to be quite a lot of span wire HPS lanterns on the highways here. I always liked the look of them - one continuous ribbon of light running into the distance. Especially pretty seen from an airplane.

I'll spare you from the mentioning of profits, but there is another side to it : Certain bodies and organizations have to generate the appearance of ongoing important work and problem solving, when there are no problems left which have to be solved

If you think of virtually any area (be it in lighting, cars, appliances, etc) where progress equals "things we dont like", you'll notice that this happened exactly and immediately once all the real problems in that area were solved