Light Pole Safety Testing

 

Each year a handful of people are electrocuted, and hundreds more report being shocked, due to electrical wiring problems associated with street and highway lighting systems. Most of these faults would have been safely cleared if the equipment grounding conductors and bonding systems were properly installed and maintained. It is not practical, nor is it cost effective, to test grounding conductors and bonding connections on large-scale lighting systems. Instead, electrical safety pole audits have been used successfully in New York State and Massachusetts for three years to identify these publicly accessible electrical hazards. The findings so far show that the problem is much more extensive than originally thought- initial pole audits show that one in every 337 light poles is unsafe. This article describes the typical pole audit and points out lessons learned from the field.

 

Click here to download this article by Mark Voigtsberger, VP of Operations, Power Quality Testing.