Daylight S Time yr round would save 400 lives/yr & reduce crime and energy use.
Some very good points!
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_29591073/steve-calandrillo-california-should-have-daylight-savings-time
Assemblyman Kansen Chu's proposal to switch California to standard time year-round recognizes that the biannual clock switch is bad for our sleep cycles, but the opposite solution -- year-round daylight saving time (DST) -- is far superior to year-round standard time.
Aside from the fact that many more Californians enjoy being out and about in sunlight during late afternoon and early evening (both for recreation and commerce) compared to morning, there are numerous additional, crucial reasons not to switch to year-round standard time.
Hundreds more lives will be lost (mostly to vehicle-pedestrian accidents) if we have an extra hour of darkness in the evening as opposed to the morning. The evening rush hour is twice as fatal as the morning for various reasons -- more people are on the road, more alcohol is in drivers' bloodstream, people are hurrying to get home, and more children are enjoying outdoor, unsupervised play. Sunlight helps mitigate those risks, whereas darkness that comes earlier in the evening (created by a move to standard time in place of DST) would have precisely the opposite impact. A recent Rutgers meta-study by Coate & Markowitz demonstrated that nearly 400 lives per year could be saved by moving to year-round DST; the opposite effect would occur if we imposed year-round standard time under Chu's proposal.
In addition, sunlight in the evening hours has a far greater impact on the prevention of crime (especially juvenile crime that peaks in the after-school hours) than it does in the morning. Criminals prefer to do their work in the darkness of evening and night; crime rates are comparatively low in the early morning hours. A recent British study found that improved lighting in the evening hours could reduce the crime rate by up to 20 percent. Whatever reason that criminals are late to bed and late to rise, let's not make it worse by switching to standard time year-round -- inadvertently giving them an extra (dark) hour to aid in their workday.
Third, energy is saved by having the sun still up in the early evening when nearly the entire population is awake (and using energy). Having the sun rise before 5 a.m. during summer (which would happen if we were on standard time) does very little to help anyone, since almost no one is awake to use it. Having the sun around later in the evening helps large segments of the population who are still out and about. Recreation and commerce flourish in daylight and are hampered by darkness. This is the primary reason that nearly all chambers of commerce and recreational interests favor extended DST.
While well-meaning legislators like Chu have begun efforts to eliminate the biannual switch in a noble desire to improve health outcomes (due to lost sleep in the days following the clock switch), their efforts will have precisely the opposite effect of those intended. Sunlight is far more important to health, efficiency, safety and the prevention of crime in the late afternoon/early evening than it is in the early morning. That's not to say there aren't downsides to DST and to the biannual switching of clocks, as Chu has observed. But on net, when all of the costs and benefits are balanced out, the advantages of extended DST (namely, lives saved, as well as crime reduced) far outweigh those of imposing standard time year-round.
= new reply since forum marked as read
.html][IMG]
[/IMG][/URL]
