’Dele Olasupo
At about 2 am today 1st of November 2021 in the UK, there is a 1-hour backward time shift in all clocks, this is observed every year in about 40 per cent of the countries across the world.
In May 1916, Germany established daylight saving time as a way to conserve fuel during World War 1, then shortly after, the rest of Europe came on board, while in 1918, the United State also adopted DST.
Daylight savings time generally is observed between the hours of 12midnight and 3 am. Most European countries observe DST around March and end in October, except Russia, Iceland and Belarus.
In Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Spain and Switzerland, DST is known as Central European Summer Time(CEST) and it starts at exactly 2 a.m. local time when clocks are moved ahead an hour to 3 a.m.
It has been observed that DST brings more light to enjoy the evening time and research shows that during this period, there is about a 27 per cent reduction in crime rate, due to the light-filled evening hours. DST could also be pocket friendly because the cost of artificial lightning goes down drastically at the period as a result of the more natural daylight. A lower rate of traffic accidents has also been seen around this period, as a result of longer light hours.
Meanwhile, there are always great traffic incidents during the first week of DST because the change would still be strange to people’s system, causing a delay in waking up for work, this leads to high speed and resulting incidents. An increase in heart attack risk has also been recorded during Daylight Saving Time and some people never adjust to time change resulting in decreased quality of life and health.
