Billboards typically use a fixture design that provides poor directional control of the illumination. Much of the light produced by these fixtures misses the sign and beams directly into the sky. The power lines are located midway between the sign and the camera, demonstrating poor lateral directional control as well.

This sign owner seems to realize that downward aimed illumination avoids the waste of light directed into the sky.
 
 

This post-top mounted fixture yields inherently poor visibility. The post blocks illumination near its base, where it is most needed because of the fixture's unshielded, glaring light source.
 
 

The combination of "veiling luminance" created by a bright, unshielded light source in our field of view, and the ring of shadow created by the post make this pedestrian very difficult to see. Ironically such fixtures are often called "pedestrian lights."
 
 

This school's neighbors won't have to pull the blinds at night to avoid glare. Tax money is saved by well-directed illumination.
 
 

The lighting at this fire station is low glare as well as very attractive.
 
 

This is the proper way to illuminate building entryways. Ground base floodlights are often used, but they are blinding when we exit a building or peer out through a window.
 
 

This fixture is attractive as well as non-glaring.

After passage of the Nashville, IN outdoor lighting ordinance, Speedway, Inc. demolished and rebuilt its gas station at SR 46 and SR 135 in Nashville. Thanks to the ordinance the new station utilizes lighting fixtures recessed into the canopy and covered with a flat lens flush with the canopy ceiling, Illumination levels under the canopy range from 5 to 10 footcandles, a comfortable level that stands in stark contrast to a grossly overlit station up the street.

Sometimes diagonally-mounted floodlights are used to illuminate parking lots, with poor results. Even worse, at this location at 62^nd and Allisonville Rd in Indianapolis the flood lights are mounted onto the roof, which blocks illumination of much of the parking lot, requiring additional lighting under the soffit. As a result the floodlights contribute little more than vision-impeding glare (but lots of it.)

Motorists approaching the liquor store from the south must cross a railroad track while driving toward the unshielded glare from one of the roof-mounted floodlights. Even an attentive driver familiar with the area could easily confuse the floodlight with the headlight of an on-coming train What about drivers unfamiliar with the area, not paying close attention?

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