A voice said “Let There Be Light” and, because He had a good cellphone, there was. But this isn’t Genesis, it’s Germany, where cash-tight towns are saving thousands of pounds in electrical bills by turning of the streetlights until somebody actually needs them. In the new system citizens can trigger the lampposts by phone – think of it as a huge public version of the “using the screen as a torch” trick.
In other areas it’s literally a pay-per-view system, for viewing anything at all, where independent companies charge the caller to turn on the lights – which may be going too far. Saving electricity all round by not having the lamps illuminating late night nothing is one thing, but even the smallest charge can lead to vast games of Blind Man’s Chicken, with everyone waiting for someone else to get tired of falling over first.
Some complain that the system assumes everyone has a mobile phone, but let’s face it: they do. With town budgets tightening all round, if you don’t live somewhere with postcodes be prepared to see this system soon.
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