To not feel safer with more street lighting?

[QuentinWinters]

The government have announced more fund to help women feel safer including more lighting
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56410943
Where I live, the street lights go off at 1 and I sometimes walk home alone in the dark. I much prefer it when its dark. I think it would be much harder for a predatory man to be able to see me coming from far off as they wouldn't know if i was male or female and therefore I think it would put them off loitering.
I feel much safer as I can easily avoid someone coming the other way without them noticing I'm female.
So...am I weird or would more lights help you feel safer being out and about after dark?

Like many things in government, its paying lip service and appearing to do something without actually addressing the root cause(s) of the problem. It completely fails to address the sad fact that most women are already acquainted with their rapist and that lighting and location make little difference, it basically plays into the myth that rapists hide down dark alleyways waiting to catch women who stray away from the lighted areas.

As for plain clothes officers in clubs? Don't even get me fucking started.

I can remember plain clothes police in the clubs in the early 80s. They stand out so well they might as well be spot lit.

I feel safer if the lighting is good (in the city) as cctv and any passing cars can see what’s going on. An attack was stopped within 2 minutes last week, thanks to the intervention of cctv ops.

Take me back to my dissertation 26 years ago!

Lots of things the powers that be put in to make women feel safer often have the opposite effect - they base their ideas of safety on their view often as men, often as white middle class men - being brightly lit up on a tree lined street with houses either side feels different to being lit up on a deserted road by a scrap of waste land - YANBU

Lots of things the powers that be put in to make women feel safer often have the opposite effect
Thats what I was wondering about.
I'd missed the plain clothes officers in clubs
I think I'd prefer a decent look at how to improve convictions for sex offences tbh

I think only a minority would actually feel safer with no streetlights.

As someone has already pointed out, women are at far greater risk from people they already know.

I think the science suggests that we can tell men and women apart from the way they walk/move so unless you were completely unseen by a predatory male the chances are you would recognise they were male and they would spot you were female.

Whilst safety from opportunistic attackers is a consideration I think less street lighting would put more people at risk of falling over and injuring themselves. Being hit by a car is also a consideration for those of us who live on roads with no pavements. When the lights go out at 1am I can't even see my car on the driveway (unless it's a full moon or close to) so I would need a torch to go out which would presumably defeat the point of using darkness to hide in for protection.

On DD’s way to and from school there is a lit way and and unlit way. I always tell her to go the lit way after dark for safety. She çan also be seen be drivers so road safety too.

Yeh I definitely think you will be in the minority on this one, no I wouldn’t feel safer with less street lighting, how odd.

I would feel safer after dark if those with mental health problems and violence/sexual issues were given the correct treatment. Regardless of how you feel about the criminally insane, they must be treated early and properly. I really do think that some murders could have been prevented had the perpetrator been given the correct help.

Some sensible street lighting is helpful. Bright white LED street lighting makes me feel less safe as it ruins my night vision

Street lighting won't make much difference. I suppose it will help you spot a potential troublemaker from a greater distance but there will always be places to hide in the shadows.

But it's kind of like with the curfew suggestion the other day, it's looking at headlines rather than the actual problem. Women are MUCH more likely to be attacked by a friend or partner than they are a stranger. Women are MUCH more likely to be attacked at home (or other safe place) than they are in the street.

Attacks by strangers get the headlines - and the protests and vigils - because they seem shocking. But the real shock should be with the ones that happen in supposedly safe places like the home. It's odd, the fact that by venturing out alone after dark we're statistically safer from being attacked than by staying at home with our partner, but those are the facts.