Comments on: Silly traditions

By: Jamie Touhill

Jamie Touhill — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:34:28 +0000

Not to beat this dead horse TOO much more; but just for the satisfaction of my own ridiculous level of curiosity, I sent an email yesterday to Russ Rader (the IIHS guy quoted above) and the two Carnegie Mellon professors, in attempt to find out if any of their research indicated whether the cumulative traffic fatalities in a given year are higher now (i.e. with the DST switching-an-hour-back-and-forth thing) than they would be if Standard Time were used year-round (i.e. eliminating DST altogether). So far, David Gerard (one of the professors) and Russ Rader have written back. Mr. Gerard’s response was inconclusive on the overall year-round “net” effects; but Mr. Rader seems to feel that we’d be worse off, as far as traffic-related deaths, if the clocks were never turned back than we are with the current system.

David Gerard’s email response:

“Prof Fischbeck and I looked at the switch in the Spring and in the Fall, and we found a spike in risk (measured in deaths per miles walked, per trips, per minute) for the evening period in the Fall. That was pretty clear from looking at our data, and (as per Mr. Rader) it is consistent with published research in this area. Our motivation was simply to alert people to this risk. These deaths appear to be offset by fewer deaths in the morning, but for a variety of reasons it is difficult to tell from our data what the net effects are.”

Russ Rader’s email response:

“Our research indicates that it is the darkness earlier in the evening that increases the risk. The Institute favors year-round Daylight Saving Time because it increases the amount of evening daylight, thereby reducing crash risk. From a safety standpoint, we would be worse off by extending Standard Time year-round.”

By: Jamie Touhill

Jamie Touhill — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:06:37 +0000

I just re-read the article, and you’re right that it does appear as though the quote was taken out of context. I think the ambiguity lies in the fact that the article was referencing multiple studies and possibly slightly differing opinions (e.g., Fischbeck and Gerard from Carnegie Mellon, John M. Sullivan at the University of Michigan, and Russ Rader from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety). Your interpretation likely came from the Carnegie Mellon study, while the quote I referenced was from the IIHS one.

In general, I think the main reason for society wanting to move an hour of daylight from morning to afternoon is the configuration of the waking part of the day for most humans (at least here in the US, and likely in most of the Western world). Due to the fact that the astronomical “middle of the day” (i.e., approximately noon, depending on where in one’s Time Zone that he/she is located) is usually two or more hours behind the “middle of a person’s day”. If only we could all wake up at 4:30 a.m. and go to bed at 7:30 p.m., there wouldn’t be any perceived need for Daylight Savings Time.

By: gravitycollapse

gravitycollapse — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:43:48 +0000

Ahh…thank you on the clarification on the Daylight Savings Time thing. However, the point of my article wasn’t pointing out whether Daylight Savings Time or whatever is superior. The point of the article linked (and my post), is that the switching of time is what causes the deaths, and the switching of time has absolutely no practical use anyway; it doesn’t make anyone safer, it doesn’t save energy; all it does is inconvenience us).

Also, about the quote you lifted: you lifted it out of context. I don’t think they’re saying that Daylight Savings time is inherently safer; they’re saying that stabilizing the time instead of screwing with it arbitrarily is the problem. (If they had written the article in the Spring rather than the Fall, they would have said the reverse…that staying with normal time would save lives.)

By: Jamie Touhill

Jamie Touhill — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:30:20 +0000

One other thing is that the article that you referenced actually argues in FAVOR of “Daylight Savings Time”, believing that it even should be extended year-round: “The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety of Arlington, Virginia, in earlier studies found the switch from daylight saving time to standard time increased pedestrian deaths. Going to a year-round daylight saving time would save about 200 deaths a year, the institute calculated, said spokesman Russ Rader.”

By: Jamie Touhill

Jamie Touhill — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:09:31 +0000

Oops, I just realized I misspelled “preference”.

By: Jamie Touhill

Jamie Touhill — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:07:08 +0000

The only problem with your argument is that “Daylight Savings Time” is intended to maximize daylight in the EVENING, not the morning. When clocks are set back an hour in the fall, it is merely to return to “Standard Time”. I actually kind of like the extra hour in the evening during several months of the year, especially here in Maine where we’re at the eastern edge of the Eastern Time Zone. But it’s a matter of preferance, I guess.