Technorama

The BBC had an interesting article the other week: Tundra time call in clocks debate. It is great the BBC gave some coverage to this safety and productivity issue (also sanity, daylight helps well-being!)

"Sir Alistair Horne said it was "absolutely crazy" for the UK to have a different time zone from the rest of central Europe."

He is absolutely right, we all deal with Europeans, travel there on holidays, and then because the UK is still -1 behind Central European time we miss meetings (13:00 telecon with German customer? oops, I'm on lunch break then). Wikipedia has a page on GMT showing Western European Time on the map so you can get a better idea.

There is a fantastic independent write up of the 1968-71 UK British Standard Time trial, it was a great sucess. With 2,700 less KSI (Killed or Seriously Injured) over the period the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents reports (section 2.1 in report below), it's not possible to argue with that figure.

"This Note provides an overview of the pros and cons of British Summer Time, as well as details of the latest attempts to change it in the UK.": British Standard Time 68-71

Workaround is start work @ 8:00, and come home at 16:00, the only problem is children aren't allowed to arrive at school before 9:00. Interestingly, 1.3 indicates Norway and Sweden are doing exactly as I suggest already (people work earlier hours in winter months to make the most of the light).

The people who would moan about this reform are likely the same bunch that did last time, the rural crowd saying that this means they have to milk cows in the dark.. (why not just milk them 1 hour later?), and the parents who don't like waking their children up when there isn't a complete sun visible outside (they would rather they walk home in the dark and get run over).

Another post on this matter: RoSPA Calls For Switch To Ligher Nights to Save Lives

BBC article from 2003: Safety call as clocks go back

BBC article from 2006: Clock change 'would save lives'

Daily Telegraph 2006: Majority in favour of double summertime

The Guardian 2006: Whatever happened to Double Summer Time?

For those that argue we are placed to deal with both the US and Asia from our time-zone, just compare the US West coast with Asia/Australia east coast, (both sides of pacific) why not nudge our time-zone to fit best?

Los Angeles is GMT -8
Sydney is GMT +10

See the timezone map.

You can see where I am going with this. The blue column at GMT+1 is perfectly aligned to take advantage of this working day :)

It's also a small co2 issue, there is one hour longer every day now that everyone has to have lights on.

It is inevitable that as is always some are hostile to change, but standardisation and safety improvements really seal this one for me. I say bring it on ;)

p.s. I won't get on to this point this time around, but standardising on driving on the same side as the rest of the Europe is also a good thing (like Sweden did, switching in the 60s). Metric is also one worth moving too (no more Miles and Yards signs, yay!)

Labels: Europe, timezone, UK