Daylight Saving Time – Love it or Hate it?
Do you like Daylight Saving time, or do you dread it? It’s almost that time, on Sunday, March 13 we will be ‘springing ahead’ to add an extra hour of daylight into our days!
There is a movement to do away with it all together while most western countries are still adhering to Daylight Saving Time.
Here is some history on it as found on Wikipedia
“Daylight saving time in the United States is the practice of setting the clock forward by one hour when there is longer daylight during the day, so that evenings have more daylight and mornings have less. Most areas of the United States observe daylight saving time (DST). The Uniform Time Act of 1966 established the system of uniform daylight saving time throughout the US.
In the U.S., daylight saving time starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November, with the time changes taking place at 2:00 a.m. local time. With a mnemonic word play referring to seasons, clocks “spring forward, fall back”—that is, in springtime the clocks are moved forward from 2:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. and in fall they are moved back from 2:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. Daylight saving time lasts for a total of 34 weeks (238 days) every year, about 65% of the entire year.”
More daylight and warmer weather in spring time means… more criminal activity!
Does Daylight Saving Time Reduce or Increase Crime?
You might be surprised to find out how Daylight Saving time affects crime! We were!
“In a new paper forthcoming in The Review of Economics and Statistics, we find that shifting daylight from the morning to the early evening has pretty hefty returns for public safety. When DST begins in the spring, robbery rates for the entire day fall an average of 7 percent, with a much larger 27 percent drop during the evening hour that gained some extra sunlight.
Why might this time shift matter? The timing of sunset is pretty close to the time many of us leave work, and walking to our cars or homes in the dark makes us easier targets for street criminals. We feel safer when we’re walking in the daylight, and it’s easy to imagine why light might have a deterrent effect on crime: offenders know they’re more likely to be recognized and get caught if they’re fully visible. The timing of sunset matters because our daily schedules can’t easily adapt to follow the daylight. Most people can’t leave work before 5pm, even if it would be safer to do so.”
source: brooking.edu
Spring Season is Not a Big Crime Season (but Summer is!)
More daylight means less darkness which in turn translates to less crime.
Most criminals do want cover of darkness to commit their crimes. The biggest exception is burglaries, which happen most often between the time of 10 AM – 2 PM, when people are not home but at work!
So what can you do in spring?
- Relax!
- Go outside and play.
- Make sure to activate your home security system, but enjoy that extra daylight and sunshine.
If you are the spring cleaning kind, read this.
If you are the worrying kind, here are some spring home security tips to consider implementing.
Daylight Saving Time Bring Us Less Crime!
You got this!
