Company News from yesinsurance

21 October 2008 Scrap October Time Change And Save 100 Lives A Year, Saya Insurer

Latest research from motor insurer yesinsurance.co.uk indicates that around 100 deaths and 800 serious injuries from road accidents would be prevented each year if the UK stayed on British Summer Time (BST) during the winter.

The UK is scheduled to move its clocks back one hour from BST at 1am this coming Sunday, 26 October.

UK road deaths currently stand at just over 3,000 a year, with serious injuries at almost 30,000 a year. The yesinsurance figures indicate that these numbers could fall by between 2 and 3 per cent if the October time change was scrapped.

“Scrapping the October time change would cause a slight increase in road accidents in the darker mornings, but would result in a bigger reduction in accidents in the late afternoon and evenings,” said Paul Purdy of yesinsurance.co.uk

“Accident statistics show that darkness increases the level of risk on the roads and our own experience of insurance claims on car accidents mirrors this pattern,” he said.

If the UK did not put clocks back an hour next weekend, drivers would have an extra hour of daylight in the late afternoon, at a time when vehicle and pedestrian numbers are at high levels.

By going a step further and putting clocks forward an hour in winter, the UK would benefit from an even greater reduction in the number of accidents, the insurer said. However, the benefits would decrease in more northern areas of the UK, where the sun sets earlier.

An idea to put clocks forward in winter was dropped following an experiment undertaken between 1968 and 1971, based on anecdotal evidence relating to early morning accidents involving schoolchildren.

However, the insurer says that a properly monitored study would reveal a bigger decrease in accidents later in the day, many of which would have been at the time children were coming home from school.