Saturday 24 March 2012

COMMENT: Spring Forward - the curse of changing the clocks

Yes, it's that time of year again when Europe puts the clocks forward by one hour.


It gives an extra hour of daylight in the evening but, of course, makes the morning darker for an hour. The loss, for many, of an hour's sleep and the disruption to our established sleep patterns means that the next few days tend to see an increase in tiredness and more accidents.

Changing the clocks forward in spring and back in autumn might have had a purpose in the past (even that is questionable) and, of course, during World War Two there was Double Summer Time when the clocks were moved forward two hours!

Today it all seems a bit daft and unnecessarily disruptive.

Common sense, the markets and a general sense of co-operation would suggest the UK should ditch GMT and keep clocks one hour forward, joining with the rest of Western Europe.

But it's the biannual changing that's the real problem.

Let's work out which is the best time zone for the whole year and leave the clocks alone.

No comments:

Post a Comment