Right: William Willett, an English builder and outdoorsman, pushed for the introduction of daylight saving, partly because, as an avid golfer, he wanted an extra hour in which to finish a round on a summer afternoon.
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Arguments against abolishing daylight saving
1. Daylight saving increases the opportunity for recreation and exercise
One of the major arguments put forward in support of daylight saving is that, by adding an additional hour of available daylight at the end of the school and working day, daylight saving increases the population's opportunity to enjoy outdoor activities and especially to exercise. A number of studies have supported this potential benefit.
A 2014 study examining exercise patterns among Australian, British and European children during daylight saving months found that evening daylight seems to prompt an increase in children's activity. Although the average increase in activity was small in absolute terms, these increases applied across all children in the populations surveyed. Moreover, these small effect sizes compared favourably with the typical effect of other interventions intended to increase children's exercise levels. The study stated, 'We therefore conclude that...the introduction of additional daylight saving measures could yield worthwhile public health benefits.'
A 2014 United States study similarly concluded that daylight saving appears to promote exercise within the community and thus has the potential to benefit public health. The study stated 'Americans spend six minutes in front of the TV for every minute that they spend outdoors. This figure is alarming, especially in light of the health care costs imposed by obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. We find that DST has the potential to increase outdoor activity by 30 minutes and burns an additional 10 per cent of calories. This
may have important policy implications.'
The study further stated, 'During the DST extension period, the average American has the potential to reduce their Body Mass Index (BMI) by 0.91per cent... This translates into healthcare savings of $8.33 billion annually.'
Western Australia does not currently have daylight saving; however, it trialled daylight saving between 2006 and 2009. A study of the impact of this policy change on the activity level of Western Australians found a discernible increase in the activity levels of men and some other subgroups in the state.
The findings of this study suggest that the introduction of daylight saving in Western Australia resulted in almost half the population changing their physical activity patterns. These changes were evident both in terms of when people were physically active (in the morning before work, during the day, in the afternoon after work, later in the evening) and the number of sessions of physical activity. The study found that for males, respondents 30-44 years of age, and those living in the metropolitan Perth area, daylight saving provided a greater opportunity to take advantage of additional after work
hours of daylight for physical activity. The same positive effect was not observed with a majority of female respondents suggesting that morning exercise may suit them better.
The study concluded, 'The introduction of a public policy that imposes a relatively modest compulsory change, such as daylight saving, can...have a powerful impact on patterns of physical activity.'
2. Daylight saving advantages a range of industries and businesses
Supporters of daylight saving generally argue that it has substantial benefits for many industries and businesses. By extending the available daylight at the end of the working day, DST enables many people to recreate after work in a way that advantages restaurants, entertainment venues, sporting-related businesses and many others.
When federal law extended daylight saving by a month in the United States it met with widespread approval from American business spokespeople. The United States Chamber of Commerce praised the extension of daylight saving under the 2005 law, which increased the amount of shopping and commerce after work in evenings. In the golf industry, the group has noted exceptional increase in revenue of '$200 million in additional sales of golf clubs and greens fees'. The extension of daylight saving has also had a notable impact on Halloween and candy sales. Wyoming Senator Michael Enzi and Michigan Representative Fred Upton advocated the extension from October into November especially to allow children to go trick-or-treating in more daylight.
Michael Downing, a lecturer at Tufts University and author of the book 'Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time' argues that the primary motivation for daylight saving time is the benefits that it offers the business community. Downing states, 'Since 1915, the principal supporter of daylight saving in the United States has been the Chamber of Commerce on behalf of small business and retailers...The Chamber understood that if you give workers more sunlight at the end of the day they'll stop and shop on their way home. It's not just golf-the barbecue industry loves daylight savings, so do the home good stores because people tend to go out of their houses, see that their roofs need replacing and buy more shingles. It's a really important part of niche marketing for the retail industry.'
A 2002 survey of 708 businesspersons in Queensland on the question of whether the state should adopt daylight saving indicated positive expectations regarding employment, increased sales and growth in cultural and recreational services industries.
One of the key industries claimed to benefit from daylight saving is tourism. Extended available daylight provides further opportunities for tourists to sightsee and consume the products of the country or region they are visiting. Keith Tully commented in Real Business Rescue in March, 2015, that ' According to British government statistics and data provided by the Tourism Alliance, putting the clocks forward is estimated to boost UK tourism revenues to the tune of S3.5 billion and generate around 80,000 jobs. This is the upshot of lighter and longer evenings which...see businesses open for longer and tourists - and locals - more inclined to spend money on outdoor recreation and leisure.'
3. The negative effects of daylight saving are short-lived and their effects are exaggerated
Supporters of daylight saving argue that many of the negative claims made about it either refer to effects of very short duration, or are highly exaggerated.
Critics of DST tend to focus on the disorientation and sleeplessness that can result immediately after the moving of clocks forward or back when daylight saving begins and ends in a particular jurisdiction. The short-term health risks and the brief period of increased accident rates are used as a basis for condemning the entire operation of DST. Its defenders argue that these are only short-term problems that are outweighed by the benefits that daylight saving offers over the months each year during which it is in place.
In an article published in Popular Mechanics on March 12, 2018, Dan Nosowitz argued that common criticisms of daylight saving were based on 'humans being impatient and all too willing to miscalculate the harm of short-term problems over subtle long-term benefits'.
Nosowitz explains, 'Remember! DST is not the two days per year...we move our clocks around. DST is eight months long [in the United States and six months in the Australian states that adopt it]; those two days are the beginning and the end of DST. To focus on just those two days is ridiculous.'
David Prerau, the author of Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time, has argued, 'There's a big difference between the effects of the one-hour change from standard time to daylight saving time-those effects take place over a day, maybe up to three days-versus daylight saving time itself, which lasts eight months.'
Nosowitz argues that even these short-term disadvantages tend to be exaggerated and taken out of context. He states, ' Critics of DST often focus their criticisms around those two days per year, citing confusion, schedule disruption, and even health problems. A 2012 study indicated that in the few days around the springtime clock change (the beginning of DST, in other words), incidents of heart attack rose by 10 percent. Never mind that heart attacks were found to decrease around the time of the autumn clock change ... also by 10 percent. Never mind that heart attacks are much more likely to come in the winter and early spring than any other time of year, period. Statistics like that are pretty easy to twist to your liking.'
Supporters of DST further note that if the disadvantages associated with the two days of daylight saving transition each year are considered too great, a better solution would be to impose DST all year round and so remove those days of adjustment altogether.
Adjusting the clocks by an hour every spring and autumn could be put to an end by the European Commission after a survey found most European Union (EU) citizens were against it. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the continent-wide survey to which 4.6 million people responded, revealed 84 per cent of Europeans want to stop moving the clocks back and forward by an hour under daylight saving time and would prefer DST all year round.
4. Daylight saving reduces crime
Supporters of daylight saving argue that it discourages crime in both the short- and medium-term. They point to studies that indicate an immediate drop in assaults following the introduction of daylight saving and a longer termer decline in crime as the extra hour of available daylight reduces opportunities for crime.
A United States study published in October, 2017, in The Journal of Experimental Psychology noted that in the short term, losing an hour of sleep can reduce certain crimes. After the start of daylight saving time in the spring (when clocks are turned on an hour), the study found assault rates dropped by about 3 percent.
In contrast, when daylight saving ended and people gained one hour of sleep, the average assault rate increased; it was 3 percent higher on the Monday immediately following the end of daylight saving time, compared with the Monday a week later, the researchers found.
Study co-author Adrian Raine, a professor of criminology, psychiatry and psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, stated, 'Sleep problems have previously been associated with increased antisocial and criminal behaviour, so we were surprised to find that increased sleep was associated with increased offending.'
The researchers have suggested that the drop in assaults at the beginning of daylight saving time may be because people are just too groggy to act on their aggression after losing that hour of sleep in the spring. Lead study author, Rebecca Umbach, a doctoral student in criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, stated, 'You think, "If I don't get a lot of sleep, I'm going to be cranky and angry"...Your intention is to act more aggressively, but your behaviour does not reflect that, because you're tired. You're too lethargic and sleepy to act.'
In a study published in December 2015 in The Review of Economics and Statistics it was argued that daylight saving helps to reduce the incidence of certain sorts of crime for the entire period that the additional hour of available daylight is in place.
The study found shifting available daylight from the morning to the early evening has a substantial effect on public safety. When DST begins in the spring, robbery rates for the entire day fall an average of 7 percent, with a much larger 27 percent drop during the evening hour that gained some extra sunlight.
This decrease remained consistent even after accounting for differences in day of the week, weather differences, and crime levels. They also found a 43 percent reduction in murder and a 56 percent drop in rape during the extra hour of evening daylight.
The researchers speculate that sunset is the time many people leave work, and walking to their cars or homes in the dark makes them easier targets for street criminals. They suggest that the greater available daylight at this key period in people's days has a significant deterrent effect, causing potential criminals to believe their risk of detection and apprehension would be greater.
Examining a period beginning in 2007 when Congress extended daylight saving across the United States by four months, the study found extending DST saved $59 million per year in avoided social costs by reducing the number of evening robberies.
Further, the extra hour of darkness in the morning did not impact morning robbery rates, nor did it lend any credence to those who asserted that children walking to school or waiting for the school bus would be more susceptible to being abducted. In other words, offenders did not merely reallocate their crimes to a different part of the day as evidenced by overall reductions in daily crime totals during DST.
5. Daylight saving reduces road accidents
Supporters of daylight saving argue that DST reduces the overall incidence of road accidents.
This is despite studies which have indicated that in the day immediately following the adoption of daylight saving in a particular year, there is a short-term increase in traffic accidents.
Referring to the United States, the law firm, Ingerman & Horwitz, stated, 'What many do not know is that Daylight Saving Time...reduces traffic accidents and deaths. The 1970 Department of Traffic study...showed DST reduced traffic accidents, saving 50 lives and about 2,000 injuries in March and April of the years studied.'
A United States study published in 1995 in the American Journal of Public Health examined the effect of daylight saving on road accidents in the period from 1987 through to 1991.
The study concluded 'During daylight saving time, which shifts an hour of daylight to the busier evening traffic hours, there were fewer fatal crashes. An estimated 901 fewer fatal crashes (727 involving pedestrians, 174 involving vehicle occupants) might have occurred if daylight saving time had been retained year-round from 1987 through 1991.'
Another United States study conducted in 2004 and published in Accident Analysis & Prevention produced very similar findings. Analysis of county level data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System for 2-week periods in 1998 and 1999 were used. Results showed that full-year daylight saving time would reduce pedestrian fatalities by 171 per year, or by 13 per cent of all pedestrian fatalities in the 5:00-10.00 a.m. and in the 4:00-9:00 p.m. time periods. Motor vehicle occupant fatalities would be reduced by 195 per year, or 3 per cent, during the same time periods.
In 2007, a study titled 'Short and Long Run Effects of Daylight Saving Time on Fatal Automobile Crashes' and published in The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy outlined numerous advantages of daylight saving in the reduction of traffic accidents. The United States study stated, 'DST has no significant detrimental effect on automobile crashes in the short run; [and] DST significantly reduces automobile crashes in the long run with an 8-11% fall in crashes involving pedestrians, and a 6-10% fall in crashes for vehicular occupants in the weeks after the spring shift to DST.'
British research has also indicated that daylight saving time results in an overall reduction in traffic-related accidents and fatalities. Studies indicate that road casualty rates increase with the arrival of darker evenings and poor weather. For example, in 2013 there were more than twice as many pedestrian deaths in December as in June (the onset of summer in the northern hemisphere). It has been observed that each year from when the clocks go back in October, the peak in evening road casualties shifts so it falls in the hour after sunset. Research has also found that serious and fatal pedestrian collisions increase 10 per cent in the four weeks after daylight saving ends.
The British road safety lobby group Brake has called for year-round implementation of daylight saving time. Brake has claimed, 'It is estimated this would prevent 80 deaths and more than 200 serious injuries on UK roads every year.'