Clocks changing - when?

[Mojo]

When are we going to abolish this barmy practice of changing our clocks twice a year? It serves no purpose other than to increase electricity consumption, increase people's misery, reduce daylight hours for most of the year and generally confuse people. Let's just stick to BST all year round. If the other countries keep with DST, we'll also be in Central European Time for part of the year!

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Keep-BST/

 

[me123]

We need GMT in Scotland, though. We then have children walking to school in the darkness if we don't go back and that is just downright dangerous in some places. I do not support this for that reason.

It makes sense down south, and I know you can't really see what it's like in Scotland, but why should we then have the UK in two time zones? Let's just keep it; think baout the children!

 

[mrcheek]

I dont see what the point of BST is.
Why dont we just stick to GMT? The whole world's time is based on us!

 

[Mojo]

But instead of going in in the morning, you have people coming home in the darkness when you go back instead. And there are far more people who are out in the afternoon than in the morning.

 

[Ascot]

Get an extra hr in bed sometime in Autumn, loose an hr in bed in spring. Now if the clocked just kept going back......

 

[P156KWJ]

we need GMT only - not bst!! GMT is famous!

 

[me123]

But instead of going in in the morning, you have people coming home in the darkness when you go back instead. And there are far more people who are out in the afternoon than in the morning.

But at 3 o'clock and 4 o'clock, bar a couple of days in the middle, it's still light enough for children to see when walking home. As I've said, they tried it before and dropped it partly because of this safety issue. And BST itself is useful giving us more sensible daylight times.

Of course, we could just "split the difference", giving us an easy medium!

 

[P156KWJ]

or just accept it :roll:

 

[TheSlash]

I think we need to get rid of changing the clocks, whether GMT or GMT+1. It's more hassle than it's worth

 

[Mojo]

But I don't see the difference. For seven years I arrived home from school or college in the dark for part of the year because of GMT, and I now arrive home in the dark from work, even though I work 8am-4pm. There are more people out-and-about in the evenings and an hour to do something productive outside would be very handy.

As for safety, a valid argument, but there are more people travelling after 1645 when the sun sets, than earlier in the morning. This causes more accidents.

 

[theblackwatch]

As I've said, they tried it before and dropped it partly because of this safety issue.

They tried it before? :???: I can't remember there being a year then we didn't put the clocks back in October - when was it tried, the 19th century?

 

[gordonthemoron]

late sixties/early seventies apparently

 

[Mojo]

Apparently the man who "invented" it is Chris Martin's (from Coldplay) great great Grandfather.

 

[TheSlash]

They tried it before? :???: I can't remember there being a year then we didn't put the clocks back in October - when was it tried, the 19th century?

I thought daylight saving came about because of the war? Something to do with giving farmers more time?

 

[djw1981]

But at 3 o'clock and 4 o'clock, bar a couple of days in the middle, it's still light enough for children to see when walking home. As I've said, they tried it before and dropped it partly because of this safety issue. And BST itself is useful giving us more sensible daylight times.

Of course, we could just "split the difference", giving us an easy medium!

Yeah but why not keep the clocks the same but start school at 10am rather than 9am for 6 months.............. same effect on the school day and safety, but less effect on the rest of Uk (the other 90%) and also it spreads the rush hour out a bit.

All of China is in one time zone, and so schools in the west of china start school at what is (according to their clock) 1am, [Because it is 1am in Beijing] however the 'local' time would be 8am IIRC, and it would be 'daylight. Thus the time on the clock doesn't matter as long as every one knows what is going on.

 

[theblackwatch]

Further to the 'safety issue', according to wikipedia, after the trial (which I've now found was in 1968-1971) ROSPA actually recommended that BST be retained in winter months, and that 'double summer time' be implemented in the summer. The full paragraph, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Summer_Time, reads:

Safety campaigners, including the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), have made recommendations that British Summer Time be maintained during the winter months, and that a "double summertime" be applied to the current British Summer Time period, putting the UK two hours ahead of GMT during summer. RoSPA suggest this would reduce the number of accidents over this period as a result of the lighter evenings, as was demonstrated when the British Standard Time scheme was trialled between 1968 and 1971, when Britain remained on GMT+1 all year. Analysis of accident data during the experiment indicated that while there had been an increase in casualties in the morning, there had been a substantially greater decrease in casualties in the evening, with a total of around 2,500 fewer people killed and seriously injured during the first two winters of the experiment. RoSPA have called for the two year trial to be repeated with modern evaluation methods. The proposal is opposed by farmers and other outdoor workers, and many residents of Scotland and Northern Ireland, as it would mean that, in northern Britain and Northern Ireland, the winter sunrise would not occur until 10:00 or even later.

 

[me123]

Yeah but why not keep the clocks the same but start school at 10am rather than 9am for 6 months.............. same effect on the school day and safety, but less effect on the rest of Uk (the other 90%) and also it spreads the rush hour out a bit.

I see the benefit in that and anyone who turns up early/late on the first day probably would do it under the current regime anyway. And a 10am schoool start: I like Sadly, I have only 17 days left

As long as we don't have 10am sunrises, though, that's fine. Small children walking to school need at least half-an-hour of daylight for this purpose alone and it is unfair and unsafe to expect them to walk to school (perhaps along rural roads) in pitch darkness.

If we can come up with a way to ensure safety of school pupils either by maintaining the current system or pushing northern school times forward an hour, it would work for the kids. The latter could be the better option because I think southerners in particular want the extra time in the evening that GMT gives them.

 

[Mojo]

I'm not sure about totally shifting the timezone. The sunsetting gone 9pm when it sets before 5pm for another few months of the year seems a bit pointless. It would be better to balance it out, surely, as well as totally scrap the minor annoyance of doubling the time?