Unintended consiquences

[SteamWake]

Heard this story the other day and it just struck me as a good example of the law of un-intended consiquences.

Many states have mandated since somewhere in the mid 90's that traffic stop lights be replaced with new energy saving LED traffic lights. These lights do indeed work quite well and actually do save energy as well as labor due to their extremly long lamp life.

Last week something happened, something never even thought of. There was a bad winter storm blowing snow ice and the like. Well the ice and snow built up on the traffic lights to a point where they were no longer visible. This of course led to accidents as pepole evidently dont have a clue as to what to do when there is no traffic light.

You see the older incandescant lights put off enough heat to prevent them from freezing over.

Now the city(s) had to launch a fleet of trucks equiped with manpower and heating torches to go around and 'thaw' the energy efficent stop lights.

Basically the 'carbon footprint' saved by the energy efficencint lights was blown away by the fleet of trucks, men, and their torches.