Why are the dates when we switch between summer and winter times (for example, swapping between Greenwich Mean Time and British Summer Time in the UK) placed so asymmetrically around the solstices?
鈥� Hillary Shaw's response to this question says that, by using Greenwich Mean Time in winter, the UK is 鈥渕inimising accidents caused by travelling in the dark鈥� (16 December 2017). The evidence points the opposite way.
Between 1968 and 1971, there was a trial in which British Summer Time was maintained all year. Analysis of accident data showed an 11 per cent reduction in casualties during the affected hours in England and Wales, and a 17 per cent fall in Scotland.
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The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents estimates that since the trial 鈥渕ore than 5,000 people have died and more than 30,000 received serious injuries in the UK on the roads, for no reasons other than entrenched prejudice and lack of political will鈥�.
Ian Cairns, Seaford, East Sussex
鈥� British Summer Time was introduced in 1916 and had nothing to do with travel to work. It allowed agricultural workers to labour into the evening on the estate farm or their allotments to aid the first-world-war effort.
Eileen Holttum, Edinburgh, UK
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