What's with the car down the road a bit? It seems to be sideways Anyway I have seen this before, both with light and utility poles. Some really old concrete poles from the 60's don't even have hand holes!

Trying to change lanes? it not like there's another turnoff between where I took the pic and the lights ahead.

Here's it in Streetview, the pole with the buried handhole has a FCO B2255 now!

I've notieced here that the older Anchor base poles from the 70's used here look like direct burial becuase so much dirt has accumilated over the years, buting the base.

I've seen that before here too, I've also seen them bury concrete poles so shallow that you can see the wire entrance slot on the bottom.

Talk about a little dangeous. All we use here is anchor base. That way when the wreckless drivers of america knock the pole down all they have to do is bolt a new pole down without digging a new hole.

I've seen a pole knockdown where the car managed to damage the anchor base enough that it had to be recast.

Well direct burial is cheaper, here we have a mix of both direct buried concrete and anchor base aluminum poles, the aluminum poles tend to go in medians of roads since they are basically breakaway poles, the concrete is used everywhere else except where the light is on a utility pole - many of those are direct buried concrete too! I've seen cases where the anchor base was damaged too.

I've never seen a car damage the concret part, but i'm sure it could happen.

Over here we mostly use direct buried concrete, base mounted aluminium and steel. Some steel poles here have breakaway couplers installed. Utility poles here are nearly all wood even the new ones.

Some others types I've seen are direct buried steel and aluminium (used by MTO and in some parts of Brampton) and fibreglass utilty poles.

I think it's the best option to use wood because you can drill into it and not have to use clamps. i'm guessing wood is cheaper too.

The concrete utility poles here come predrilled for attaching luminaire arms, insulators, pole pigs...etc.

Ahh. That makes the job easier than. I think wood would hold up better than concrete though if it gets a strong impact. Sure wood will snap, but wood can bend to a degree while concrete can't.

Read this, sure it's a bit biased but concrete poles are much better than wood, there are also metal and fibreglass poles too.

I still like wood and aluminum poles, but it's just a matter of opinion. Not sure if it's possible, but a anchor bolt concrete pole would sound cool. I like older technoledgy/ ways of doing things.

Oh there are anchor base concrete poles, not utility poles but street lighting poles, see here, those are base mounted and here is a spec sheet showing the exact same pole, base plates are an option.

I've seen base mounted round concrete streetlighting poles before in Toronto too. Here's a spec sheet of it.