Cannydc wrote:In 1968, there was a three-year experiment when British Standard Time (GMT + 1) was employed all year round; the clocks were advanced in March 1968 and not put back until October 1971.
This period provided an opportunity to evaluate the effect of the daylight change on a number of things, particularly road accident casualties.
A Parliamentary review of the experiment reported that it was impossible to quantify a great many of the more important advantages and disadvantages of this time system and concluded that the final decision on whether to retain the system would rest largely on a qualitative judgement.
There was a wealth of support for the proposal from some sections of the public (The Police Federation, The Sports Council, the leisure industry, Age Concern) but strong opposition from others (the building industry, farmers, the Post Office), particularly those in Scotland.
In 1998, a report, commissioned by the Government, examined the effect of a move to SDST on road accident casualties. This concluded there would be 450 fewer deaths and serious injuries... Every Autumn when the clocks go back and sunset occurs earlier in the day, road casualties and the casualty rate rise.
The effects of clocks going back in October are greatest for the most vulnerable road users. In 2004, pedestrian deaths rose from 56 in October to 76 in November and 78 in December.
During the week, casualty rates peak at 8:00 am and 5:00 pm for adults and 8:00 am and 3.30 pm for children, with the afternoon peak being higher for both the children and adults. The patterns are different at weekends for both adults and children, when casualty rates peak between 12 noon and 1:00 pm and then plateau until about 7:00 pm when they begin to reduce.
As an experiment, British Standard Time (GMT +1 hour) was kept all year round for a three year period between 1968 and 1971. Analysis of accident data during this period indicated that this reduced the number of road accident casualties.
Road casualty figures during the morning (7:00 am – 10:00 am) and afternoon (4:00 pm – 7:00 pm) for the period affected by time change in the two winters (1966/67 and 1967/68) before the experiment and in the first two winters (1968/69 and 1969/70) when BST was retained were analysed.
The data showed that keeping British Standard time had resulted in
an 11% reduction in casualties during the hours affected by the time change in England and Wales and a 17% reduction in Scotland. The overall reduction for Great Britain was 11.7%. Although casualties in the morning had increased, the decrease in casualties in the evening far outweighed this.
Overall, about 2,500 fewer people were killed and seriously injured during the first two winters of the experiment.http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/info/su ... _paper.pdf