In a week’s time the time will change and we
will be in British winter time. Of course the steadily reducing days will seem
worse now as all around the sun will set earlier and rise a bit earlier. The
game of cat and mouse will continue as an innovation of the time of the First
World War will again take its toll. The idea would really come down to what an
innovation this is because those who argue for the system always say that it
prevents accidents in the early mornings.
However there is another fact that as night
comes down earlier people are leaving work in the dark. That is quite difficult
as for most this can be a problem as people are leaving work in the dark. Many
firms for instance allow woman employees to leave earlier due to a fear of
crime. This has been a problem in the UK as the government always trumpets
figures that say that crime is falling. However this is only part of the story
as of course cyber crime is on the rise.
Still the problem remains of muggings and sex crimes. Generally one piece
of evidence would be that if it was lighter in the evenings there would be a
further fall in crime. In some ways
people who commit these types of crimes do not tend to be early birds!
The debate of course rages and the greatest
benefit of the current regime is in Scotland. Yet in Scotland’s autonomy
statute that power has been reserved to Westminster. So of course the idea of
Scotland and England being on a different time zone is anathema but somehow the
South of England particularly London would probably benefit.
In the past attempts were made to abandon
daylight saving but they always seemed to founder on the fact that people in
the far north did not like the dark winter mornings. A similar attempt was made
in Russia fairly recently and also swiftly became unpopular primarily because
of the dark mornings. However the idea is now for the country to permanently go
on to Summer time.
Another result of the change is that people
now have to reset everything. The usual spectacles is of people turning up late
for Sunday engagements when the clocks go forward and early when they go back.
Despite all the publicity some still manage to forget. The idea of a permanent
switch in time definitely has some attractions and will be around for some time
to come.
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