Bad lighting can actually make things worse because of (blinding) glare and shadows:

* https://www.darksky.org/light-pollution/lighting-crime-and-s...

Proper lighting does seem to help reduce crime:

* https://urbanlabs.uchicago.edu/projects/crime-lights-study

* https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/5/9/how-something-a...

Study is ongoing:

* https://theconversation.com/the-science-of-street-lights-wha...

I'm curious to know if motion sensors can be used to turn off lights when people aren't around, but switch things on as they're in the area, and a few lights down the street as well so they can see what's up ahead. I doubt there's many folks around between (say) midnight and 5, and so some energy could be saved.

This would make things worse on streets that have even a moderate amount of traffic (4 people per hour) as lights switching on and off is far more distracting than ones that are on continously.

Depends on the settings. Limiting it between midnight and 4 or 5, when there's probably the fewest number of people awake, would be one way to minimize switching.

Whether it's a fast on-off or gradual would also probably determine how disruptive it would be.

This would also be done mostly in low-traffic areas, and that'd be relatively easy to determine because you'd have motion sensors to measure things. Heuristics could be determined to see traffic patterns: more people are likely to be out late on Friday and Saturday nights than on a random Tuesday at 0300.

One experiment found an 80% reduction in electrical use:

* https://newatlas.com/motion-sensing-streetlight-system/19199...

At the very least a system like this could perhaps be done for parking lots, which generally see little activity in the middle of the night. There's a lot of empty asphalt being lit up now.