Daylight saving/clock changing/whatever

[dinahsmum]

This is a real bee in my bonnet. It starts buzzing at about this time every year.
Can anyone tell me why we have approx 55 days from autumn clock change (dark nights etc) to the shortest day but many many more until that is reversed to give us light nights.
By my reckoning more days have elapsed since 21 December than between end Oct and that date. But the clocks don't change until the last weekend of next month. WHY.
I think they should change last weekend (ie the start of the half term holiday (just as they do in autumn ). Tourism, gardening, sport, walkers, children would all benefit. It would make us all feel good to be able to get home from work in the light and maybe even have a little walk. We'd be light till nearly 7, even at this early stage of pre-spring.

Want to join my campaign??????

PS - my theory as to why they make us wait 6 weeks is because otherwise there would be many more questions over whether it is actually wothwhile changing the clocks at all.

[Donna]

Wish they would just leave the time alone - I get all confused and it takes me ages to get round to changing everything, only to have to change it all back again!!!

[CJK]

i often forget to change them and only realise when I put GMTV on

[logoes]

Ooooops show my age now - during the War we had double summer time in the summer and summertime through the winter I think - if you see what I mean. The worst thing is when it goes back in the Winter and I forget and get up an hour earlier than I need to, and it is usually a couple of months after the changes when I realise I haven't changed the clock in the car, so that I am late/early for an appointment because I've left my watch at home and relied on the clock in the car. At least at my age I can plead senility. Logoes

[dinahsmum]

Originally Posted by logoes

Ooooops show my age now - during the War we had double summer time in the summer and summertime through the winter I think - if you see what I mean. The worst thing is when it goes back in the Winter and I forget and get up an hour earlier than I need to, and it is usually a couple of months after the changes when I realise I haven't changed the clock in the car, so that I am late/early for an appointment because I've left my watch at home and relied on the clock in the car. At least at my age I can plead senility. Logoes

I believe there was another 'double summer time' experiment a good while back? 1960's perhaps. I don't remember it, but I was around.
It seems an anachronism now - wasn't it introduced to aid farming productivity etc?
Everyone is put out to a greater or lesser degree by the change, and the time we all waste going round the house fiddling with timers and time displays must be huge.

[dinahsmum]

Here's a quote from RoSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

"The most recent research estimates that adopting Single/Double Summer Time in the UK would result in around 450 fewer road deaths and serious injuries, including between 104 and 138 fewer deaths. This confirms earlier research which showed that the 1968/71 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) saved around 2,500 deaths and serious injuries each year of the trial period."

And the experiment was 1968-71. Time for another one!

[Fran]

If the experiment illustrated such promising results, I wonder why then they reverted back to altering the clocks twice a year

[dinahsmum]

Who knows Fran?...................politics
Maybe the Scottish lobby?

[dandysmom]

I just wish we'd stay on Daylight savings time all year...takes ages to go around changing the electric clocks, the computer, the answering machine, the timer on the TVs and the watch...each & every one has a dffererent manual about changing & can never remember what to do without digging out the various instructions....UGH!! Here in the States, people complain about the children having to wait for school buses in the dark, so suppose we"ll never go on DST permanently...