how rare were sox lamps here in the united states

[sodium]

i assume they were rare because of poor color rendering but HOW rare?

[AgentHalogen_87]

The Americans much preferred mercury vapour for a very long time, and later HPS. SOX was really only seen in three main places: Coastal towns where turtles would be affected by white light, towns near observatories where cutoff monochromatic light was best to filter out, and some tunnels where a lot of lights were running 24/7. There are other places where LPS appears (like the golden gate bridge until the 1980s with GEs NA-9 lamp) and security lights before colour CCTV, but LPS was very much a rare beast in America

[Kev]

I strangely saw some 35W SOX under some bridges in tampa Florida.