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I was thinking of starting the very same petition just a few days ago. It is logical, and would save costs that laypeople fail to recognize or appreciate. DST i

by jzwinck 14y ago

I was thinking of starting the very same petition just a few days ago. It is logical, and would save costs that laypeople fail to recognize or appreciate. DST is a fertile source of bugs in the operation of important computer systems. Financial markets are an example I'm all too familiar with, where systems in New York run at a 5-hour offset to London about 49 weeks per year. Making that work (relatively) smoothly takes a lot more than the proverbial "couple lines of code." If commissions went up by 50% during those three weeks to reflect the costs, people would care more.

tsotha 14y ago
DST is also a killer. Traffic accidents go up for a few days every year when you lose an hour as groggy people are out driving to work.
- mooism2 14y ago
  I am under the impression that traffic accidents increase briefly when the clocks go forward, and decrease briefly when they go back: there's no net difference overall.
- jzwinck 14y ago
  I think it may be counter-productive to mention this, because it is difficult to prove. It is trivial to show that there are dead-weight costs incurred when computer systems need to deal with DST across political boundaries. Those costs alone should be sufficient to convince anyone to abandon DST (or just as well, adopt it full-time, as Russia recently did). The fact that "normal" people do not know these costs exist is, I think, the main reason they are sympathetic to emotional arguments such as "DST will save children's lives on Halloween" or equally your "DST kills drivers once or twice a year."
  - tsotha 14y ago
    >I think it may be counter-productive to mention this, because it is difficult to prove. Why would you think this is difficult to prove?
    - jzwinck 14y ago
      For starters, because it may not be true. Another comment here claimed that the increase in traffic accidents (note: not deaths or even injuries, we're just counting accidents) is offset almost perfectly when we gain an hour of sleep. See http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199604043341416 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199604043341416 I am completely in favor of abandoning DST, but am not convinced that it helps the cause to argue in terms of deaths. The opposition may claim with even greater efficacy among the general public that stopping DST will endanger children on Halloween (as has been claimed before).

by jzwinck 14y ago

tsotha 14y ago

DST is also a killer. Traffic accidents go up for a few days every year when you lose an hour as groggy people are out driving to work.

mooism2 14y ago
I am under the impression that traffic accidents increase briefly when the clocks go forward, and decrease briefly when they go back: there's no net difference overall.
jzwinck 14y ago
I think it may be counter-productive to mention this, because it is difficult to prove. It is trivial to show that there are dead-weight costs incurred when computer systems need to deal with DST across political boundaries. Those costs alone should be sufficient to convince anyone to abandon DST (or just as well, adopt it full-time, as Russia recently did). The fact that "normal" people do not know these costs exist is, I think, the main reason they are sympathetic to emotional arguments such as "DST will save children's lives on Halloween" or equally your "DST kills drivers once or twice a year."
- tsotha 14y ago
  >I think it may be counter-productive to mention this, because it is difficult to prove. Why would you think this is difficult to prove?
  - jzwinck 14y ago
    For starters, because it may not be true. Another comment here claimed that the increase in traffic accidents (note: not deaths or even injuries, we're just counting accidents) is offset almost perfectly when we gain an hour of sleep. See http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199604043341416 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199604043341416 I am completely in favor of abandoning DST, but am not convinced that it helps the cause to argue in terms of deaths. The opposition may claim with even greater efficacy among the general public that stopping DST will endanger children on Halloween (as has been claimed before).