Time, time, time ...

[wellinghall]

[Poll #1791764]

Comments

[crazyscot.livejournal.com]

(*) Trial year-round GMT+1 but allow the constituent nations to opt out. (It'll be a disaster.)

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

GMT+1 all year round would be fine for England & Wales & also fine by me while I'm in them, but not so good for Scotland. (Suspect NI falls between those 2 stools?)

I see no particular reason why Scotland and England can't have different times personally but it might take a lot for people to get used to it get used to and be politically controversial. It could even damage Scottish business interests and it would complicate all sorts of things such as internal flights for example. Having said that, if the London government decide to change it, maybe Scotland would continue to protest? Who knows.

Winter sucks whatever the clock says IMO.

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

When I was a teenager and cycled to school, when we had "British Silly Time" all winter, I cycled both ways in the dark, and never saw home in daylight. Otherwise, with GMT in winter, I only had to cycle *home* in the dark. Safer and less depressing. (Groggy in the morning, have woken up before the afternoon. That seems to apply to the majority.)

Of course, that could be solved by starting school at 10:00 instead, but then, the early morning types could get up when they wan regardless of what the clock shows anyway.

A move from GMT to any other time shift means that at mid day, the clock does not show 12:00. Maybe reasonable to make extra use of daylingt in Summer, but pointless all year round. Stick with GMT and open workplaces earlier according to the clock, if that is preferred.

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

Not being a morning person I would much rather have what little light there is in the afternoon. I seem to recall hearing that the road-accident argument favours more light in the afternoon as pedestrians and drivers are more tired than in the morning (whether it's dark or light) or something. I wasn't interested enough to make a note of the source of the stats for that but I do think that this argument is one of hte most important ones - children going to school or coming home in near darkness isn't good really, and it's worse in Scotland of course.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

I guess the question is whether school/office hours necessarily have to be rigidly fixed. After all, a substantial chunk of China runs with office hours 10am-6pm rather than 9am-5pm because if they used "normal" hours they'd be in the dark at odd times. Perhaps some areas would be happier moving their core working hours rather than shifting the whole timezone!

I know the Scots are unhappy about the extra dark mornings, but the Scandinavians seem to cope fairly well with considerably more darkness in winter so it's clearly something that can be managed if there's no escape! I personally find evening light is more useful than morning light.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

I hate hate hate dark mornings, and I'm in Surrey. For as long as I have to be in work at 8.45, I would much rather have the darkness in the afternoons.

[thecatsamuel.livejournal.com]

I was going to say exactly this. I find winter mornings a real trial and I'm dreading having the changes, which I think we'll get foisted on us.

[segh.livejournal.com]

We tried BST all year round. Most people hated it and the number of children killed on accidents rose. Most politicians are too young to remember, I suppose.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

That was 1971 though! So many things have changed since 1971 that I'm not sure one can really draw conclusions from it one way or the other.

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

I hated having to cycle to school in the dark as well as cycling home in the dark. We called it British Silly Time at the school where I was. I think that even now, it will be just as dark in the morning.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

But how many children still cycle to school? Cycling may have been normal when you were a child, but less than 2% of kids do it now (and of those 1.6% or whatever it is, what are the odds that they do it all year round even through the winter solstice?)

OK, it would be good if kids cycled more, but at the moment, it's a pretty rare thing to do. One of the many many things that has changed.

(I am too young to remember year-round BST, but I still had to go to and from school in the dark in the winter, because I lived in a rural area and school was just a long way away.)

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

Oops- wrong one- I meant to click on GMT all year round!

[findabair.livejournal.com]

You should be the same as us, obviously - would make it even easier to come visit :-)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Greenwich should be on Greenwich Mean Time. I'll accept a Daylight Savings adjustment since everyone does it, but it would be ridiculous for the country that is the entire basis of the international time zone system to use a different time zone to the one it should be using.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Although this feels like a sentimental reason more than a logical one, I feel this quite strongly as well.

Speaking purely personally, I don't get on well with the dark so do hate the long evenings as winter draws on and the clocks go back *but* on balance find that having a bit more light in the mornings is essential for getting me going and not too depressed throughout winter, so feel that GMT is the lesser evil for me during winter. But I'd hate to have it all year round - looking forward to the clocks going forward keeps me going through Jan and Feb! In high summer it gets light far too early as it is, it'd be much worse if we stayed on GMT, and it is nice to have lovely long light evenings (esp as it can get too hot during the actual daytime in summer for me.)