A plea for lighter evenings
The one and only leader I ever wrote for the FT was in favour of daylight saving. I thought about that while walking the dog this evening in the park. It was only about 5 pm and kids were still coming home from school yet it could have been the middle of the night.
Some people need to get up early but what's wrong with getting up in the dark? I think that more light is wasted by more people at the start of the day during winter than is saved at the end.
I can just about recall the UK experiment with darker winter mornings between 1968 and 1971 when British clocks were harmonised with those of other Western European countries.
For those three years, the UK had British Summer Time - re-named British Standard Time - all year. The Government dropped the experiment after pressure from the construction industry, farmers and politicians in Scotland who complained about a rise in road accidents during the dark mornings.
The number of early day accidents in Scotland did indeed rise. But a study carried out some years ago by the Policy Studies Institute showed that the fall in the number of road accidents in evenings during the period of year-round BST more than compensated for the rise at the other end of the day.
The study calculated that year-round BST would result in 600 fewer deaths and serious injuries a year resulting from road accidents.
Meyer Hillman, who carried out that study in 1988, said something telling at the time: "The death of a child on a dark morning in Scotland can prove very emotive evidence for retaining Greenwich Mean Time. Unfortunately lives that are not lost as a result of a change in hours do not make headlines."
There were other economic benefits too in fuel savings and extra income for leisure industries. I think year-round BST is a good idea. But we should go further and have double summer time in the lighter months as they did during the Second World War.
If lighter evenings make more economic sense, if they make life more pleasant for most of us, then why doesn't the Government make the change and leave it like that? The answer, I'm sad to say, is that there is no political will for this anywhere. It's a move that is difficult to explain to everyone, people generally are suspicious of change, and this kind of initiative does not win votes.
If only countries ran on common sense.
Here's an interesting US-based site on daylight saving
Some people need to get up early but what's wrong with getting up in the dark? I think that more light is wasted by more people at the start of the day during winter than is saved at the end.
I can just about recall the UK experiment with darker winter mornings between 1968 and 1971 when British clocks were harmonised with those of other Western European countries.
For those three years, the UK had British Summer Time - re-named British Standard Time - all year. The Government dropped the experiment after pressure from the construction industry, farmers and politicians in Scotland who complained about a rise in road accidents during the dark mornings.
The number of early day accidents in Scotland did indeed rise. But a study carried out some years ago by the Policy Studies Institute showed that the fall in the number of road accidents in evenings during the period of year-round BST more than compensated for the rise at the other end of the day.
The study calculated that year-round BST would result in 600 fewer deaths and serious injuries a year resulting from road accidents.
Meyer Hillman, who carried out that study in 1988, said something telling at the time: "The death of a child on a dark morning in Scotland can prove very emotive evidence for retaining Greenwich Mean Time. Unfortunately lives that are not lost as a result of a change in hours do not make headlines."
There were other economic benefits too in fuel savings and extra income for leisure industries. I think year-round BST is a good idea. But we should go further and have double summer time in the lighter months as they did during the Second World War.
If lighter evenings make more economic sense, if they make life more pleasant for most of us, then why doesn't the Government make the change and leave it like that? The answer, I'm sad to say, is that there is no political will for this anywhere. It's a move that is difficult to explain to everyone, people generally are suspicious of change, and this kind of initiative does not win votes.
If only countries ran on common sense.
Here's an interesting US-based site on daylight saving
Labels: BST, cloks, daylight saving, Double Summer Time, FT, GMT, politicians, road accidents, school, Scotland, Second World War
posted by Richard Donkin at
5:18 PM
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