I’ve always been an advocate of getting rid of the ridiculous Daylight Savings Time. If some people prefer more light in the morning instead of the evening, or vice versa, why don’t they just change their personal habits and get up at a different time?
If the majority of people in a company, or school, or even a whole town, felt the same way, they could simply have different winter opening hours, instead of imposing on the entire country a periodic change in how we actually calculate something as fundamental as the time! Anyone who has tried writing calendar software will know what I mean.
This has always seemed so obvious to me that I assume whoever would actually be responsible for implementing a return to normal timekeeping has had it on their to-do list for years, but it’s never quite been as important as the 15 things above it, so it just hasn’t happened. Sigh.
However, having enjoyed a marginally more relaxed Sunday morning this weekend, I have a cunning plan, of the “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” variety. I admit that it, too, has some minor inconveniences when it comes to time management, but, unlike the current system, it is brilliantly simple, predictable, and offers inestimable rewards. Are you ready?…
Let’s put the clocks back every single night! Then we could have a lie-in every single morning!
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My local town has decided that 10am is perfectly early enough for most shops to open, 11am on Sundays.
I’m excited for the EU to finally drop time changes (scheduled for 2021, but probably will be delayed). That will establish a precedent that hopefully the UK and other countries will follow as well.
Ah – excellent! – thanks, Spencer – I’d missed that one!
Let’s hope we do the same…
Greetings Quentin,
Let’s differentiate between the concept of ‘Daylight Saving Time’ and the act of changing back and forth every 6 months.
While the evidence regarding significant measurable benefits for all does seem a tad limited, there seem to be at least a couple of good reasons for the UK to go for the former (which I’d support personally – and not exclusively because I prefer not to give the dog its teatime winter walks in the dark), but not for the latter.
Links from The Guardian article below suggest that arguments based on the energy-saving potential of DST are unproven, BUT that street-crime is reduced (well…in the US survey example, anyway (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2015/10/29/fighting-crime-with-daylight-saving-time/) – as more perpetrators operate in the early evening than the morning and are perhaps discouraged from their nefarious activities – at least for a while – by the greater potential for being recognised in longer, lighter afternoons).
Also, like most Cambs. residents, I see no problem with re-joining the EU (time-wise at least ;o), which would have the benefit that we’ll not have a time-barrier with any part of Ireland or its European partners in the future, assuming that they permanently adopt Central European Time as GMT+1.
Primary Guardian article here:
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/oct/21/spring-forward-fall-back-who-changes-the-clocks-when-and-why
Of all the advantages a consistent timezone would give us, simplification of calendaring software is unfortunately not one of them!
BST has existed so it’ll still require support in new software that wants to handle historical dates. When the support isn’t there it’ll be just as painful for users as it is now. When the support is there it’ll probably be less likely to be bug-free, increasing the pain.
Good point, Andy.
Still, I do have some apps that only need to schedule stuff in the future… 🙂