It was bad enough to see 1-2 year old mercury vapor streetlights taken down and scrapped, it's insane to throw away a brand new high pressure sodium fixture after 6 months.
less than three months? wow! I've seen a M-250R2 last a few hours before. It was on the freeway. NGrid was just installing the fixture after the old onw was reoved due to a bad igniter that morning while i was on my way to my cousin's house and on the ride home from their house a few hours later, the pole had been struck and the light was on the ground. Never even had a chance to come to life. what are the odds that the pole would get hit just hours after the new fixture was installed on it? I've seen plenty of M-400 FCOs here barely make it over a week before getting hit by a car. Then they reinstall the pole with a new fixture and it gets hit again after a couple weeks. By the third time the same pole gets hit they typically need to change the pole since the end up getting so warped lol. Usually their typical fix is replace the davit portion of the pole and reuse the rest. If the davit portion is good they'll keep it though.
It's funny because you'll see davits from older removed poles that get installed on the newer poles since the new pole's davit was destroyed from a hit and run. So you'll see a charcoal gray davit (from 40+ years of weathering) mixed with almost-brand-new poles lol. So many fixtures get wasted because of those breakaway bases, though a human life is more valuable than a streetlight, especially since the lights are usually just newer HPS ones.
We have poles here that hit frequently. We've even gone as far a moving the base back a 1' or 2 and they end up still getting hit. Most of the poles that are hit sever right a the 4 bolt flange but the concrete base usually get moved to the side making us have to dig and reset the base before installing a new pole.
It's funny because you'll see davits from older removed poles that get installed on the newer poles since the new pole's davit was destroyed from a hit and run. So you'll see a charcoal gray davit (from 40+ years of weathering) mixed with almost-brand-new poles lol. So many fixtures get wasted because of those breakaway bases, though a human life is more valuable than a streetlight, especially since the lights are usually just newer HPS ones.