Would changing the UK to Central European Time (plus one hour all year round) reduce our energy consumption enough to help us pay our bills?

[nw1]

There is a marked increase of road accidents on the week immediately after the spring clock change.

So let's get rid of the October clock change then, and stick on BST all year.

 

[zero]

So let's get rid of the October clock change then, and stick on BST all year.

Ok, as long as the "working day" becomes 10-6.

 

[Annetts key]

Ok, as long as the "working day" becomes 10:00 to 14:00.

Corrected that for you

 

[nw1]

Ok, as long as the "working day" becomes 10-6.

So we then have to wait until early March, rather than early February, before it's light when we leave work?

I'd suggest the opposite: if we must use GMT in the winter, change the working day to 8-4.

 

[Bletchleyite]

So we then have to wait until early March, rather than early February, before it's light when we leave work?

I'd suggest the opposite: if we must use GMT in the winter, change the working day to 8-4.

Most office workers have a reasonable degree of flex anyway.

 

[Ediswan]

So it really comes down to whether you prefer earlier dawns or earlier dusks.

Not quite. The preference is for whether both dawn and dusk are earlier or later.

 

[Annetts key]

Not quite. The preference is for whether both dawn and dusk are earlier or later.

Point of order sir, dawn and dusk are not changed by what us humans do, the difference is just the time our clocks say when dawn or dusk occur.

Remember, before the advent of long distance railway travel, most large towns and cities had their local time, which was set by the solar day.

As more people ether work shift work, or work from home, or have flexible hours of work, the question is, should the time the clocks say continue to be based on tradition? A tradition largely based on most people working from 09:00 to 17:00. And a tradition rooted in the time when most people only had a small number of clocks and watches to adjust.

 

[Bantamzen]

Not quite. The preference is for whether both dawn and dusk are earlier or later.

View attachment 120538

My bad, I meant to write later dusks (now edited).

 

[61653 HTAFC]

There were always two reasons given for this.

One is that schoolkids can walk to school in the light. But it's getting dark when they're getting ready to leave (given that most schools close at 1530) so it's one or the other, really.

The other is farmers, but they are in control of their own day so can just change it off their own back.

I think the argument is poor, and yes, we should abolish the change, ideally changing "British Summer Time" to become "British Standard Time" at GMT+1 all year with no biannual change.

I doubt, however, with almost all lighting now being LED, it would make much difference to power consumption. My whole lighting circuit draws 0.5A with everything on, that's tiny.

I recall reading somewhere that it was considered (by the powers that be) that kids walking to school in the daylight was preferable. Not so much down to anything to do with the kids, but because driving at or before dawn after waking up was considered riskier than driving at dusk after a day's work. Thus drivers being more alert = safer for the kids walking to school.

Wish I could remember where I'd seen that- it was some time ago so it may well have been debunked. Or it may have been junk all along, though it does seem to make sense. I always hated driving before dawn more than I did after dusk.

There is a marked increase of road accidents on the week immediately after the spring clock change.

Is that down to the daylight situation, or because people have forgotten to change their clocks* and are in a rush having overslept? Or because more pedestrians are about as the weather gets warmer and evenings get lighter?
There are many variables at play here.

*=less of an issue nowadays, as many devices auto-update.

 

[DelW]

I recall reading somewhere that it was considered (by the powers that be) that kids walking to school in the daylight was preferable. Not so much down to anything to do with the kids, but because driving at or before dawn after waking up was considered riskier than driving at dusk after a day's work. Thus drivers being more alert = safer for the kids walking to school.

My recollection is that the amber flashing lights at school crossings were introduced during the British Standard Time (year-round GMT+1) period, because of the number of accidents involving children walking to school in pre-dawn darkness. Whether the reduction in evening accidents outweighed those I don't know.

Probably fewer children walk to school these days though. Also heated windscreens were unknown then, so drivers were more likely to have iced-up windscreens on cold dark mornings.

 

[nw1]

Not quite. The preference is for whether both dawn and dusk are earlier or later.

View attachment 120538

Indeed. And those times for Oct 31 show the ridiculousness of changing to GMT at that time of year. The sun rising before 7am but setting shortly after 4.30 ??!!??

As I've said before a good compromise would be to extend the period of BST for another two or three weeks, well into November. Solar noon is very early when the clocks go back (around 11.45am, so the sun is already setting at 11.50am!), but in early February it's a good half hour later (around 12.15 - 12.20).

So I will admit GMT makes some sense later in the season, when otherwise the mornings would be a bit dark, in particular, December and January probably need GMT. At least if we put the clocks back a bit later, it would be closer to Christmas, which might lighten the mood.

I'd say put the clocks back the 3rd Sunday in November, and forward again on the last Sunday in February. In March we once again have lop-sided days with GMT, with extremely light, summer-like mornings just before the switch back to BST (around 5.45am) but sunset still relatively early. I have the feeling the USA and Canada have a somewhat shorter period of "winter time" than we do, so if they can do it, why not us?

 

[Ediswan]

I have the feeling the USA and Canada have a somewhat shorter period of "winter time" than we do, so if they can do it, why not us?

If I have done the sums right, at least three weeks shorter, four weeks shorter when there are five Sundays in March.

 

[JamesT]

I have the feeling the USA and Canada have a somewhat shorter period of "winter time" than we do, so if they can do it, why not us?

For the last few decades, the dates for daylight savings have been set by EU directive. I assume that will have been somewhat of a compromise given the breadth of locations involved.
We can choose our own way now, though there presumably will be some thought as to advantages of alignment with Europe. It’s much simpler always having the same offset with another country, whereas dealing with the US can be confusing when they change at different times.

 

[AlterEgo]

It's better than the harmful and dangerous change of clock twice per year (there is scientific evidence that the amount of accidents increases immediately after clock change).

That is not related to the changing of clocks though, but rather evidence that at X time (6pm) more accidents happen after a clock change at a darker 6pm than they do the day before when it was lighter.

One would expect by your logic for the spring time change to therefore be a "safety-related change" as accidents at, say, 6pm dwindle.

 

[Bantamzen]

So I will admit GMT makes some sense later in the season, when otherwise the mornings would be a bit dark, in particular, December and January probably need GMT. At least if we put the clocks back a bit later, it would be closer to Christmas, which might lighten the mood.

I'd argue the opposite, its generally my experience that people's moods during the day are better when the mornings are lighter. There is little worse for one's mood than travelling to and arriving at work when its dark.

I'd say put the clocks back the 3rd Sunday in November, and forward again on the last Sunday in February. In March we once again have lop-sided days with GMT, with extremely light, summer-like mornings just before the switch back to BST (around 5.45am) but sunset still relatively early. I have the feeling the USA and Canada have a somewhat shorter period of "winter time" than we do, so if they can do it, why not us?

For the last few decades, the dates for daylight savings have been set by EU directive. I assume that will have been somewhat of a compromise given the breadth of locations involved.
We can choose our own way now, though there presumably will be some thought as to advantages of alignment with Europe. It’s much simpler always having the same offset with another country, whereas dealing with the US can be confusing when they change at different times.

"Because they do" & "Because we can" are not very strong arguments for changing daylight savings times. In winter we have often less than 8 hours daylight, that isn't changing. Perhaps if we want to be able to maximise daylight we need to come at the problem from a whole different angle? Perhaps we should be looking at our working hours & working weeks, and adjusting those. I feel confident that we would get better results from something like that than shuffling the deckchairs around as proposed in this thread.

That is not related to the changing of clocks though, but rather evidence that at X time (6pm) more accidents happen after a clock change at a darker 6pm than they do the day before when it was lighter.

One would expect by your logic for the spring time change to therefore be a "safety-related change" as accidents at, say, 6pm dwindle.

And again here is a situation where we should probably come at the problem from a different angle. Instead of faffing about with daylight savings time to see if it will reduce accidents, how about we learn to be better drivers and have fewer accidents in the first place? Following the Highway Code, observing speed limits, not getting impatient and taking risks would probably yield far more benefits. Or controversially for these forums, ditch cars for public transport whenever possible?

 

[johncrossley]

For the last few decades, the dates for daylight savings have been set by EU directive. I assume that will have been somewhat of a compromise given the breadth of locations involved.
We can choose our own way now, though there presumably will be some thought as to advantages of alignment with Europe. It’s much simpler always having the same offset with another country, whereas dealing with the US can be confusing when they change at different times.

Ireland will presumably want to keep the same offset with the rest of the EU as well as the UK. Obviously Northern Ireland should have the same time as the rest of Ireland.

 

[joebassman]

No, it wouldn't reduce our energy bills. It would just push the use of energy from one part of the day to another - both for heating and lighting.

The debate about which time zone we should be in relates to making maximum use of daylight hours for outdoor activities in the depths of winter.

I though the main reason was so school children didn't have to walk home in the dark?

 

[nw1]

I'd argue the opposite, its generally my experience that people's moods during the day are better when the mornings are lighter. There is little worse for one's mood than travelling to and arriving at work when its dark.

I think it depends on the person. Personally I intensely dislike it, and find it claustrophobic and depressing, when it's dark before 5pm - it's a bit of a "line in the sand" to me (and is also the reason why I find February, with later sunsets, less depressing than the other winter months).

IMV it should only be dark before 5pm if it would otherwise still be dark at 9am. That might be the case if we stuck with BST in December and January, but not early Nov.

If I have done the sums right, at least three weeks shorter, four weeks shorter when there are five Sundays in March.

Indeed. From 1964 to 1980, incidentally, (excepting the all-year round BST of 1968-71), we did switch to BST earlier in the spring, with dates ranging from 16 March (1975 and 1980) to 22 March (1964). So looks like it was the third Sunday in March. See https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zone/uk/london?year=1960, https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zone/uk/london?year=1970 and https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zone/uk/london?year=1980.

We changed to end of March in 1981 and have stuck with that ever since. I can imagine, had internet forums existed in 1981, there would have been a lot of complaints about two lost weeks of light evenings!

The autumn change though has always been October, whether in the EU or not. Amazingly, no-one has ever questioned the fact that the early solar noon of late Oct/early Nov leads to extremely lop-sided days, with sunrises before 7am and sunsets around 4.30pm.

It's settled on the final Sunday in October since 1996, but before that, from 1961 to 1994, it was between 23-29 Oct except for the all-year-BST years of 1968-70.

In 1995, uniquely, we decided, for some unbeknown reason, to put the clocks back one week earlier than previous years with similar calendars: 22 Oct, when in previous similar years (1961, 1967, 1972, 1978, 1989) it was 29 Oct. No other year from 1961 onwards has had such an early switch to GMT. Anyone know the reason for that? See: https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zone/uk/london?year=1990

Thankfully, 1995 was one of the warmest and sunniest Octobers on record which went some way towards compensating for the gloom of a week of extra GMT.

 

[Bantamzen]

I think it depends on the person. Personally I intensely dislike it, and find it claustrophobic and depressing, when it's dark before 5pm - it's a bit of a "line in the sand" to me (and is also the reason why I find February, with later sunsets, less depressing than the other winter months).

Well as you say, different people have different preferences. I'm just pointing out that people I work with seem happier when its light in the morning.

IMV it should only be dark before 5pm if it would otherwise still be dark at 9am. That might be the case if we stuck with BST in December and January, but not early Nov.

And the places stuck with less than 8 hours of daylight? Do they just have to put up with even darker mornings?

We changed to end of March in 1981 and have stuck with that ever since. I can imagine, had internet forums existed in 1981, there would have been a lot of complaints about two lost weeks of light evenings!

Has it occurred to you that the reason we have stuck with what we have is because more people prefer more light in the mornings?

The autumn change though has always been October, whether in the EU or not. Amazingly, no-one has ever questioned the fact that the early solar noon of late Oct/early Nov leads to extremely lop-sided days, with sunrises before 7am and sunsets around 4.30pm.

Again, maybe people prefer this.

 

[nw1]

And the places stuck with less than 8 hours of daylight? Do they just have to put up with even darker mornings?

No, it was a simple rule, irrespective of the day length. Ensure the sun rises by 9am. If we have to use GMT to enable that, fine. If we don't, stick on BST.

Has it occurred to you that the reason we have stuck with what we have is because more people prefer more light in the mornings?

To be fair the tone of my comment on the 1981 delay to BST "remaining with us ever since" was purely factual, with the value-judgement coming later.

But the effect of GMT in the second half of March, as has occurred since 1981, is to make it broad daylight at 6am and still dark-ish at 7pm. Would most people genuinely prefer daylight at 6am to daylight at 7pm? Find that hard to believe in all honesty.

Again, maybe people prefer this.

Similar point, I find it hard to believe that people prefer daylight at 6.45am compared to 5pm. Who, for example, is out and about at that time on a Sunday morning? (For starters, this being a rail forum, there will probably be no trains!) Contrast that to the popularity of 4-6pm for being out and about on a Sunday afternoon, at least for the 8 or 9 months of the year when our timezone lets us.

I've tried to argue for a compromise - keep GMT, but restrict its duration. Essentially the "ensure sunrise before 9am" rule as to whether we have BST (preferred) or GMT.

 

[Bantamzen]

No, it was a simple rule, irrespective of the day length. Ensure the sun rises by 9am. If we have to use GMT to enable that, fine. If we don't, stick on BST.

But it isn't simple because the further north you go, the less winter daylight you get. The fact that our current arrangements have been fixed for as long as they have should probably being speaking volumes. We can argue all day, but the fact remains that daylight is limited, so all that is really happening is the old deckchair shuffle.

To be fair the tone of my comment on the 1981 delay to BST "remaining with us ever since" was purely factual, with the value-judgement coming later.

But the effect of GMT in the second half of March, as has occurred since 1981, is to make it broad daylight at 6am and still dark-ish at 7pm. Would most people genuinely prefer daylight at 6am to daylight at 7pm? Find that hard to believe in all honesty.

Similar point, I find it hard to believe that people prefer daylight at 6.45am compared to 5pm. Who, for example, is out and about at that time on a Sunday morning? (For starters, this being a rail forum, there will probably be no trains!) Contrast that to the popularity of 4-6pm for being out and about on a Sunday afternoon, at least for the 8 or 9 months of the year when our timezone lets us.

I'm not sure what hard to believe here? Most people go to work in the morning, and most people don't lie dark mornings to commute in. I see it all the time, midwinter everyone is in a worse mood because its dark and cold when they get to work, or are least when they leave home. Come winter most people in the 4-6pm timeframe are either travelling home, or at home preparing food, getting warm in front of the fire. Having lighter mornings is far more preferable in my opinion, and I know a lot of my colleagues agree.

I've tried to argue for a compromise - keep GMT, but restrict its duration. Essentially the "ensure sunrise before 9am" rule as to whether we have BST (preferred) or GMT.

Which has been previously rejected, I'm not sure what merit there is in arguing for a method that clearly failed?

 

[Annetts key]

"Because they do" & "Because we can" are not very strong arguments for changing daylight savings times. In winter we have often less than 8 hours daylight, that isn't changing. Perhaps if we want to be able to maximise daylight we need to come at the problem from a whole different angle? Perhaps we should be looking at our working hours & working weeks, and adjusting those. I feel confident that we would get better results from something like that than shuffling the deckchairs around as proposed in this thread.

And again here is a situation where we should probably come at the problem from a different angle. Instead of faffing about with daylight savings time to see if it will reduce accidents, how about we learn to be better drivers and have fewer accidents in the first place? Following the Highway Code, observing speed limits, not getting impatient and taking risks would probably yield far more benefits. Or controversially for these forums, ditch cars for public transport whenever possible?

My personal preference is to totally ditch our antiquated time system. No more summer time adjustments, no more traditional time zones. Just have a single world time that is the same in every country (or at least, the countries that participate).

Why is 09:00 the time that shops, businesses, offices open? 09:00 is just a number. The way we “tell the time” on clocks are just numbers.

The really tricky bit would be deciding one which of the existing different time zones would become the world wide planet wide single time. As time is relative around the globe and not absolute, I think a simple lottery would be the fairest method.

So my random generator returned 8. If time zone 8 was used as the world time, then 16:22 (the time now as BST) would become 23:22. And that would be the same in all the countries that participate.

Of course, it’s never going to happen in my lifetime, as us humans can never agree to such things, because we squabble in the belief that we are more important/better/different/ whatever compared to someone else from elsewhere and that we have the right to choose ourselves. Except that as individuals we don’t actually have much choice…

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

My personal preference is to totally ditch our antiquated time system. No more summer time adjustments, no more traditional time zones. Just have a single world time that is the same in every country (or at least, the countries that participate).

Why is 09:00 the time that shops, businesses, offices open? 09:00 is just a number. The way we “tell the time” on clocks are just numbers.

The really tricky bit would be deciding one which of the existing different time zones would become the world wide planet wide single time. As time is relative around the globe and not absolute, I think a simple lottery would be the fairest method.

So my random generator returned 8. If time zone 8 was used as the world time, then 16:22 (the time now as BST) would become 23:22. And that would be the same in all the countries that participate.

Of course, it’s never going to happen in my lifetime, as us humans can never agree to such things, because we squabble in the belief that we are more important/better/different/ whatever compared to someone else from elsewhere and that we have the right to choose ourselves. Except that as individuals we don’t actually have much choice…

This already happens! OK it's only in the field of aviation. The "time zone" used is in fact GMT but is referred to as UTC (Universal Time Constant) but also known as "Zulu Time" since the letter Z is added as a suffix to the time to emphasise that UTC is in use.

 

[Annetts key]

This already happens! OK it's only in the field of aviation. The "time zone" used is in fact GMT but is referred to as UTC (Universal Time Constant) but also known as "Zulu Time" since the letter Z is added as a suffix to the time to emphasise that UTC is in use.

And I take it, that it works well?

 

[Bletchleyite]

And I take it, that it works well?

It would be confusing for countries whose single day would be two calendar days.

 

[edwin_m]

It would be confusing for countries whose single day would be two calendar days.

If we all went to UTC the day would change at midnight UTC everywhere in the world, so everywhere would be on the same day. But in some places "office hours" would run across two days.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

And I take it, that it works well?

Like anything you deal with on an everyday basis, yes. Of course with IT everywhere it is very simple to automatically translate between UTC and local time and v.v.

 

[Ediswan]

This already happens! OK it's only in the field of aviation. The "time zone" used is in fact GMT but is referred to as UTC (Universal Time Constant) but also known as "Zulu Time" since the letter Z is added as a suffix to the time to emphasise that UTC is in use.

UTC is, in English, "Coordinated Universal Time". The abbreviation is a compromise between French and English (does not match either).

https://www.timeanddate.com/time/utc-abbreviation.html

The official abbreviation for Coordinated Universal Time is UTC. It came about as a compromise between English and French speakers.

• Coordinated Universal Time in English would normally be abbreviated CUT.
• Temps Universel Coordonné in French would normally be abbreviated TUC.

 

[nw1]

But it isn't simple because the further north you go, the less winter daylight you get. The fact that our current arrangements have been fixed for as long as they have should probably being speaking volumes. We can argue all day, but the fact remains that daylight is limited, so all that is really happening is the old deckchair shuffle.

I'm not sure what hard to believe here? Most people go to work in the morning, and most people don't lie dark mornings to commute in. I see it all the time, midwinter everyone is in a worse mood because its dark and cold when they get to work, or are least when they leave home. Come winter most people in the 4-6pm timeframe are either travelling home, or at home preparing food, getting warm in front of the fire. Having lighter mornings is far more preferable in my opinion, and I know a lot of my colleagues agree.

What I was trying to emphasise, in my opinion, is the most valuable daylight in the winter is at the weekend (because people are working Mon-Fri anyway) and I would imagine that most people who like outdoor activities would prefer a decent amount of daylight after lunch, to avoid the day being too rushed. Certainly that's my own preference for a Sunday! Plus, too many hours of late afternoon and evening darkness tend to drag on a bit, you feel like your waking hours are being wasted.

Certainly most people I know tend to moan about GMT and the clocks going back. Perhaps living in the south of England, south of the M4, and closer in distance to Normandy (on CET/CEST) than Northern England is an influencing factor here though. It's perhaps in the south, where the days are always at least 8hr long, and particularly the SE, where the "lop sided effect" of disproportionately light mornings and dark evenings in March and early November manifests itself the most.

But I guess we can argue forever about this so maybe best to stop here

 

[Bevan Price]

The snag with going to GMT+1 in winter is that fog is most likely in the early morning, but often starts to clear after dawn. A change to GMT+1 would make dawn an hour later, so people would be likely to drive in fog for longer periods if they still wanted to get to work by 08:30 or 09:00 .
As many people know, driving in fog can be dangerous, and all too often, it has led to multi-vehicle accidents.