Columbus residents can voice their opinions of how colored LED lighting affects drivers’ reaction times by contacting their city council members through the city’s website here.
The City of Columbus appears to be ignoring the science behind roadway and tunnel design, as studies show their installation of rainbow-colored lights can lead to traffic accidents.
The Dragonfly Trail Network’s installation of “rainbow lights” inside the 11th Street Underpass will likely decrease the reaction time of drivers and cause traffic accidents, according to numerous scientific studies including one published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
According to an internationally-recognized study published by the NIH, a driver’s reaction time is the fastest when tunnel lighting is as close to natural light as possible.
The study, titled “The Impact of LED Color Rendering on the Dark Adaptation of Human Eyes at Tunnel Entrances,” has definitively shown that darker lights like reds, browns, and blues, significantly affect a driver’s ability to recognize obstacles. The unnatural lighting largely decreases their reaction time in both spotting objects and recognizing what they are.
When colored light is shone onto an object, it masks similar colors on the objects themselves and causes them to blend into the background. For example: if you are wearing a red t-shirt under a red light, it is very difficult for drivers to spot you, since you blend in with the ambient lighting in the tunnel.
When colored lights are used inside tunnels, they mask objects of similar colors.
The NIH study dove deeply into this otherwise common-sense phenomenon, showing definitively that certain colors were far more difficult than others for drivers to spot and react to.
The study measured a driver’s reaction time in spotting different colored “targets” under various lighting conditions in a nearly-perfectly simulated roadway tunnel. What the study found was no surprise: the closer the tunnel’s lighting was to natural light, the faster the driver was able to detect targets of various colors and react to them.
Colors closest to natural light like yellows, silvers, and whites allowed drivers to spot and recognize the obstacles in under 2 seconds, on average.
Some colors, however, made it significantly harder for drivers to spot the targets. Reds, browns, greens, and blues took drivers between twice and four times as long to spot and recognize what they were.
Reds took drivers about 7 seconds to react, as did browns. Greens varied from between 4 and 6 seconds, depending on other conditions. Blues also took about 4 seconds for drivers to react to. While naturally-colored lights took just 2 seconds on average.
Another study conducted in 2018 corroborates those published by the NIH. In a study published by Dong, et al., the color of LED tunnel lighting was evaluated to see how it affected a driver’s ability to transition from the dark exterior of a tunnel entrance to the lit interior of the tunnel, known as “dark adaptation.” The experiment revealed the following:
“The light color characteristics of LEDs significantly affected dark adaptation. Specifically, the better the color rendering and the lower the absence of blue light, the shorter the dark adaptation time. Among various LEDs with different CCTs, the 4000 K–4500 K LEDs (those with temperatures closest to natural light) have better light color characteristics and can shorten dark adaptation times. Therefore, LEDs with CCTs of 4000 K–4500 K are preferable for lighting tunnel entrances.”
Dragonfly Trails Inc. is a registered 501(c)(3) organization in Columbus, Ga. selected for a public/private partnership with the Columbus Consolidated Government. No financial information was available for the organization, and no website exists for the organization to publish it themselves. It is unclear how the organization and its public/private partnership with the city is funding the colored light installation, as it is not available for the public to view.
In spite of the various years-old scientific studies available, the Dragonfly Trail Network and the city of Columbus, Ga. chose to ignore the scientific findings completely. In fact, the Dragonfly Trail Network seems to be taking as much artistic liberty with the colored lighting as possible, despite the scientifically-known characteristic of decreasing driver reaction time and increasing the likelihood of traffic accidents.
The Dragonfly Trail Network recently asked the public to help them determine what colored lights drivers should be subjected to, requesting the general public’s opinion despite the body of scientific knowledge on the subject.
The organization’s lack of concern and consideration for the safety impacts of their colored lighting installation appears to be irresponsible and may allow a case of gross negligence in the event of an accident.
In a separate post, one resident commented with a scientifically-sensical thought. The resident, whose identity we have redacted for privacy considerations, rightfully asked the Dragonfly Trail Network why they weren’t just using one simple color instead. The Dragonfly Trail Network did not respond to the rather intelligent and sensible question.
However, given the Dragonfly Trail’s previous post outlining their current plan for various color schemes, one might deduce what the rainbow color patterning is intended to represent.
We will leave it to the reader to decide the intent, though the scientific facts remain nonetheless:
Given that the tunnel lighting is intended to attract pedestrian traffic and cyclists, it will likely increase the opportunity for pedestrian crashes; the most dangerous and deadly form of automotive traffic accidents.
This further demonstrates how the lighting installation may enable a case of gross negligence against the city and Dragonfly Trails Inc., should a pedestrian crash inevitably occur. The likelihood of a pedestrian crash is a reasonably foreseeable event which could have been reasonably avoided by following the body of scientific knowledge surrounding the subject.
Columbus residents can voice their opinions of how colored LED lighting affects drivers’ reaction times by contacting their city council members through the city’s website here.
We’d give you a point of contact for Dragonfly Trails Inc., but the registered non-profit —which is partnered with the city— doesn’t have a website or email publicly listed.
