'Should the clocks go back?' Poll discussion

craig86

nfranc wrote: »

I believe it would be better for British business, travel etc if we were in the same time zone as the rest of our major trading partners in Europe. We can never get anywhere near the states so it would be better to be the same as one of them.

I have to say this is a weak argument. The United States (mainland) is split into 4 time zones (7 if you include Alaska and Hawaii) yet they manage OK. It seems stupid that the UK would not use Greenwich Mean Time. (And most of the UK is west of the Greenwich meridian anyway.)

Having a different system for Scotland also seems stupid; IMO we should have the same time across Britain and Ireland. For a small group of islands it seems excessive to have 2 or 3 different systems of time.

IMO we either stick to GMT all year round or keep things as they are.

Cruachan

Am I the only one old enough to remember that this was tried for a couple of years back in about the 1960's and abandoned as a failure?

I think one of the reasons for its failure was increased road congestion in the mornings. At the moment most manual workers start work at 8am and office workers at 9am. With darker mornings manual workers who work outside would have to delay their start until 9am thus concentrating the morning travel rush.

lotstolearn

I remember when they tried it out in the 1960's too and it was a disaster - 3 years they did it for if memory serves me right and it didn't work and caused more accidents and problems with working. That trial didn't work.

From a personal point of view I remember it being most unpleasant, very dark mornings with cold, slippery, hard travelling conditions and the slight difference it made in the evenings didn't make up for that - I live in the Midlands so can't imagine how unpleasant it was for those further north and/or in the country.

I think we should bear in mind what GMT is, what it means:

The Greenwich Meridian (Prime Meridian or Longitude Zero degrees) marks the starting point of every time zone in the World. GMT is Greenwich Mean (or Meridian) Time is the mean (average) time that the earth takes to rotate from noon-to-noon.

GMT is World Time and the basis of every world time zone which sets the time of day and is at the centre of the time zone map. GMT sets current time or official time around the globe. Most time changes are measured by GMT. Although GMT has been replaced by atomic time (UTC) it is still widely regarded as the correct time for every international time zone. http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.co.uk/what-is-gmt.htm

Give me GMT all the time please.

LameWolf

thegrifter wrote: »

I live in NE Scotland and quite frankly I don't care much which time we use, just pick one and stick to it.

I'm in Milton Keynes, and I agree with thegrifter. We don't get any more daylight, it's just at a slightly different time of day; we spend an age fiddling with timepieces, usually miss changing at least one of them, which results in minor chaos:D, it mucks about with our "internal clocks", and I've yet to discover how to explain to dogs that it's not walkies/meal time yet because the clocks have been tinkered with.

Ethanol

Why don't we compromise and put the clocks back 30 minutes in the autumn and leave them there permanently? We can then refer to ourselves as being in the UTC+0.5 time zone rather than GMT or BST.

lawrentius

There are two arguments for moving to continental time that ought to outweigh one's personal preferences. (!) the reduction in road accidents, especially those involving young children. (2) the saving in heating and lighting costs. These benefits were found during a trial some years ago. My own personal preference is for longer summer evenings; daylight at four o'clock in the morning in mid-summer is of no use to anyone.
lawrentius

ann.chil

Don't care which we stick with, but please, stop changing the time. Let's stick with one or the other all year round.

winston_1

I have a radio controlled clock which runs off a German transmitter but displays UK time. There is no means to offset the time by one hour (as there is on some later models). So unless we can persuade the Germans to not put their clocks back to my clock would be rendered useless in the winter.

I can also remember the experiment in the late '60s and remember how awful it was cycling to work in the dark. The Government should look at history and not make the same mistakes again. Wishfull thinking?

Infidel

Yeah, they have different time zones in the USA, and then most people living in the South of England already live closer to a different time zone than they do to Scotland.

So Scots, you can have your own time zone. We need another hours daylight here in England. Besides, during summer it's ridiculous when it's getting light at 4am and thoroughly depressing when dark nights are drawing in even before summer has started properly. Then in winter, as it stands now it can still be dark at 3pm-ish when it's a particularly bad day in meteorological terms. It's about time we stopped being so backwards, and if the Scots want to continue to support Argentina et al in the World Cup, well them them eunitnoc...........

meher

Sure it should. Those who protest have no idea of the scientific properties of the morning sun light. Why else do you find all the beauty in nature and among other life lke plants and birds when the sun shines - birds sing, garden flowers angels bring, larks on the wing, air smells so fresh and clean, hillside dew-pearled, sun so yellow and bright, alright alright that's me being carried away :rotfl::o but you get the drift

anyone taking issue can always reschedule their work times or even better cut off working hours - no need for hard and fast rules on that, to open and shut offices, schools and shops an hour earlier

in any case it's about time to stop being so self-indulgant, greedy and fast and instead slow down our pace, a start would be to reduce working hours - may be we should channel these debates on that