DST and accidents

[Chris Carrier]

On 04-Apr-96 20:52 PST Arthur David Olson (ado at elsie.nci.nih.gov)
wrote about: DST in the news
 
>Page A9 of the Thursday, April 4, 1996 Washington Post has a story headlined
>"Daylight Savings May Be Motorists' Loss," .. about a letter to
>the New England Journal of Medicine from Stanley Coren of the University of
>British Columbia. The article notes that "Moving clocks forward an hour...
>causes more traffic accidents the next day, according to [Coren's] study."
 
Hmmm.  I remember when the 1986 amendment to the Uniform Time Act was passed
which started DST earlier, one of the arguments in favor was that it would
REDUCE traffic accidents in the month of April.
 
I was opposed to the 1986 amendment extending DST, even though I don't mind
DST in April.  I opposed it because I would like to see DST end not later than
the last Sunday in September, and to have the time zones brought closer to
where they astronomically ought to be to prevent the post-8 a.m. sunrises
parts of the country are plagued with in October.  Since the amendment didn't
touch this (and in fact, the bill that passed the House would have made it
worse, extending DST to the 1st Sunday in November) I was against it.