The Reason Your Streetlights Are Purple

Have you noticed the rise of purple streetlights in your town? I haven't, but that may be because my small town is trying to look quaint and vintage to draw tourists. Purple streetlights are being noticed all across America. There must be a reason for that, like being easier on the eyes or safer. It's none of that, and and it turns out to be a pretty dumb reason. To get to the bottom of it, this video goes through the change from sodium vapor lamps on our streets to LEDs. Sure, there are a lot of advantages to LEDs, particularly in the amount of energy they use. They are certainly brighter, even though a lot of folks don't like them. LEDs use the visible spectrum of light differently in an attempt to mimic light from the sun, with less success than we'd like. The purple has been showing up only in the last few years, and it's not intentional. The good news is that LEDs are getting better all the time.