On the radio last night they were saying that if the UK were to change time zone to Central European Time this would help save lines and reduce CO2 emissions through lower energy use due to lighter evenings. It would also help with trade with mainland Europe as the stock exchange could open at 9 AM local time. It has been talked about for some time but it seems finally these plans may move forward. Do you support this idea?
-
Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Changing the UK's time zone
- Thread starter Zoe
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
I don't think we should change time zones, I could explain in more detail but it would take too long to type on my iPod.
90019
Established Member
Currently it's dark until about 8 AM or so in the winter by which time people will be leaving for work and the extra hour of darkness will make no difference as they will already have left the house.
Ivo
Established Member
Why should we have to change a long-term British tradition to slot in line with something that many Brits - myself included to a degree - don't like? (The EU of course.) What would become of the name "Greenwich Mean Time"?
Oh, er, sorry fella, but there ain't no such thing as GMT these days. Not since Greenwich left Greenwich Mean Time. (A deliberate southern tone, complete with double negative, to emphasise the point.)
And speaking of Greenwich, it would suffer massively - the whole maritime tourism aspect of its economy would surely be lost...
Oh, er, sorry fella, but there ain't no such thing as GMT these days. Not since Greenwich left Greenwich Mean Time. (A deliberate southern tone, complete with double negative, to emphasise the point.)
And speaking of Greenwich, it would suffer massively - the whole maritime tourism aspect of its economy would surely be lost...
SS4
Established Member
Dark mornings and children going to school cannot end well
SS4
Established Member
Yes, since even in the middle of December sunset is about 1540 according to http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=1327&month=12&year=2011&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1
What about Cornwall and the West Country who's mornings will be dark until even later?
Not everyone works. Not everyone leaves the house after 0800.
I find it a bit strange that the reasonign given for this proposal is that it will help the economy and help the environment. It's a sif by using the magic words of 'economy' and 'environment', everyone will be so much more enthusiastic, despite the fact that the arguments don't really stand up.
Although I don;t support the proposals, I don't think they would have any effect on tourism in Greenwich!
Indeed. Didn't accidents go up rather a lot when this was tried in the 1970's? Or did I dream it?
Schools seem to finish a lot earlier than when Iw as a lad. It's still light when the kids are going home, even in the depths of winter.
When it was tried in the 1970s the UK stayed on GMT+1 all year. This is not what would be done now as there would be a move to GMT+2 in the summer. Don't forget that France is directly south of the UK and Spain is to the south west and both of these are on Central Euroepan Time.
Would the fact that we were on GMT+1 in Winter and GMT+2 in Summer mean there were no more accidents than there are now? No. It will still be dark when children are going to school!
I understand that Spain are considering amendin gtheir time so that they ar enot in line with France and Germany.
No but the point is that it wouldn't be the same as the 1970s trial, back then the UK did not go to GMT+2 in the Summer. An extra hour of light in the evening will likely result in less accidents and lower crime rates.
And? What's the problem with using separate time zones? One that works for us and one that works for them? Why do we need to try tinkering with something has worked for more than a hundred years when there is no concrete evidence that it will improve anything (indeed the only time we did try something different it was abandoned as a bad idea!)?
Source?
ralphchadkirk
Established Member
What's your evidence base for that?
Well I'm not a scientist or consultant that has studied this in depth so you can't expect me to actually have produced the evidence myself but RoSPA are very much in support of the change. http://www.rospa.com/about/currentcampaigns/lighter-evenings/
RoSPA said:
Last edited:
I am sorry but I have to disagree about it being strictly a British issue. GMT is certainly 'EU-friendly' - it's Western European Time (WET). A fact people forget!
Among EU countries, the UK, Ireland, Portugal and the Canary Islands (Spain) all use WET/GMT.
I think mainland Spain has proposed to join Western European Time.
SS4
Established Member
Something tells me it comes up every time the clocks go back!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Iceland do strangely enough too although of course they're not in the EU
Last edited:
ChrisCooper
Established Member
Why is there this idea that Europe would be so much better with a single time zone, when the US and Canada both manage with 3 time zones?
Or Russia with 9...
T163R
Member
Of course that's a wonderful idea, there's nothing more important to do...
Aictos
Established Member
- Joined
- 28 Apr 2009
- Messages
- 10,403
The only reason why the clocks go forward in the summer is as I was taught for GCSE History, it was the UK Government at the time during World War 1 who wanted that extra hour for the farmers to be able to do their work.
There's no need for the clocks to go forward at all now, so as a alternative to Central European Time why not just scrap putting the clocks forward in the spring?
There's no need for the clocks to go forward at all now, so as a alternative to Central European Time why not just scrap putting the clocks forward in the spring?
Hydro
Established Member
- Joined
- 5 Mar 2007
- Messages
- 2,204
I propose a central European time bailout fund, each member state to contribute 10 minutes every year. Any countries short on time are eligible for a grant of time, to be paid back over a period to be determined. Interest shall be accrued at a rate of 2.5 minutes every month. Leap years are to have all additional 24 hours harvested for foreign time aid. Countries behind CET will have a stronger case for a grant application, countries ahead will be scorned as time capitalists.
Peter Mugridge
Veteran Member
I'd like to know the answer to this as well, considering that most crime happens in daylight...
Logic dictates that 12.00 is when the Sun is at the meridian and 00.00 is midnight for a reason, namely that it is the middle of the night.
It follows that GMT is the logical year round time zone for this country ( and for those countries directly south of us! ).
Problems co-ordinating with daylight are exactly that... co-ordination problems. If people got up an hour or two earlier and went to bed an hour or two earlier ( and had their working hours etc etc etc an hour or two earlier ) we would get the exact same effect as messing around with the clocks but without the illogicality of people treating midnight as bed time instead of the middle of the night...
Our biological "body clocks" evolved to match the cycle of sunrise and sunset for a very good reason; to artificially push our sleep cycle away from the "midnight is midnight" rhythm cannot be doing our underlying health any good in the long term.
martinsh
Established Member
No ! No ! No ! No ! No ! No ! No ! No !
They tried this in about 1970, and I still have memories of the horrible dark mornings. They abandoned it after 1 or 2 years ....
route:oxford
Established Member
- Joined
- 1 Nov 2008
- Messages
- 4,949
Isn't pure, natural, sunlight the best way to lift snow and ice from the roads and pavements in the morning?
The sooner it starts warming everything up the better.
In fact, turning the clocks back 2 hours in the autumn would have the sun rise earlier and probably cut hundreds of accidents in the winter mornings.
The sooner it starts warming everything up the better.
In fact, turning the clocks back 2 hours in the autumn would have the sun rise earlier and probably cut hundreds of accidents in the winter mornings.
I support the idea of changing time and have done for a long time and also pleased to see my MP supporting the idea in Parliament when it was raised last year. I however think we should be sticking to the current time all year round rather than still going through the clocks changing twice per year. It isn't particularly pleasant when its dark at 4pm; before most people have left work and when there are a larger amount of people out there than the morning.
I always remember when the clocks change it seems nicer in the morning for about a week then goes back to how it was before so one has to question that.
I always remember when the clocks change it seems nicer in the morning for about a week then goes back to how it was before so one has to question that.
I'm not counting my chickens, they say it every year but nothing seems to happen. I remember the three year experiment in the late 80s/early 70s, I had hoped that it would be permanent but as far as I recall it was farmers who objected the most (cows must be cleverer than I thought if they know when the clocks change and automatically expect to be milked an hour later from that day), and the Scottish who were complaining (maybe arguably justifiably) about it still being dark well into the morning, regardless of the fact that at the moment it gets dark at about 3 in the afternoon in the north west.
Surely we in England do more business with the CET time zone (population 100s of millions) than Scotland (6 million) and I cannot believe I'm wrong in saying that many more people leave our shores to the south every day (and so have to put their watches forward an hour) than travel over the border into Scotland, so if the Scots objected, why not let them keep the time as it is now whilst putting the clocks forward an hour in Engalnd and Wales. (I assume that the Irish wouldn't want to change their time zone as they're further west, so the Scots would still have the same time zone as them).
It wouldn't be quite so bad keeping GMT/BST if we could put the clocks back in mid November and put them forward again say some time in February. At the moment its getting light at around 6am and dark at around 6.30 by the time they go forward at the end of March.
Surely we in England do more business with the CET time zone (population 100s of millions) than Scotland (6 million) and I cannot believe I'm wrong in saying that many more people leave our shores to the south every day (and so have to put their watches forward an hour) than travel over the border into Scotland, so if the Scots objected, why not let them keep the time as it is now whilst putting the clocks forward an hour in Engalnd and Wales. (I assume that the Irish wouldn't want to change their time zone as they're further west, so the Scots would still have the same time zone as them).
It wouldn't be quite so bad keeping GMT/BST if we could put the clocks back in mid November and put them forward again say some time in February. At the moment its getting light at around 6am and dark at around 6.30 by the time they go forward at the end of March.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
I was about to make a similar point to this, but this is very well stated.
I would have to say a rather large NO to the OP, which I note that many other forum members have also intimated. This is another case where a poll could have been added to the thread, to give a visual check on members preferences.
On a somewhat different tone, would the change make any differences to the amount of thread postings on this forum..:roll:
Lampshade
Established Member
It just won't; it'll just move the accidents/crimes forward an hour.
- Status