Daylight Saving Time Ends Sunday, Even If Your Clock Sprung Ahead

[Woodmonkey]

Daylight Saving Time Ends Sunday, Even If Your Clock Sprung Ahead


CHICAGO -- Daylight saving time is set to end Sunday at 2 a.m., a week later than usual, as new federal rules that shorten the period for standard time take full effect.

For most folks, that means setting the clocks back an hour. But there are those who may already have sprung ahead of the official time change, as some alarm clocks across the country jumped the gun last weekend, automatically setting back to standard time a week ahead of schedule. Computer operating systems that hadn't been updated did the same.

The problem: Their internal calendars weren't adjusted for the new rules.

Congress changed the daylight savings law in 2005, but didn't put it into effect immediately so potential software problems could be worked out, said David Prerau, author of "Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time." Prerau also was a consultant to Congress on the law extending daylight saving time.

After the law passed, manufacturers began programming the new dates into electronics.

But for those who own electronics with internal clocks that predate 2005 -- and have no way to change the daylight saving time settings -- the changing of the clocks could be a biannual annoyance, Prerau said. Those people might have to disable the feature altogether.

"It is annoying for people who have equipment that can't be changed," he said. "I'm hoping that anything new has new dates but (also) a relatively easy way to change the dates," just in case the daylight saving time rules change again in the future, he said.

Affected electronics

That said, most products will likely be unaffected by the schedule change, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. That's because most time-dependent products such as cell phones and computers get their time and date from a network.

It's devices that aren't connected to a wired or wireless network -- including many wrist watches, alarm clocks and VCRs -- that need extra attention. These often are the devices that need to be reset after a power outage, said Jenny Pareti, spokeswoman for the group.

"Anything that isn't connected to a network or a broadcast source will need to be manually reset," she said. If the product was made before August 2005 and it uses an internal calendar, owners should disable the daylight saving time feature and/or change the time manually, according to the group.

Older computer operating systems may also be affected, but there are often easy fixes that can be made to update them, she said. Microsoft, for example, has a page devoted to helping consumers get the correct updates. Visit the Microsoft site.

Windows Vista and Office 2007 have already incorporated the new schedules, so users don't need to download or apply new patches, according to Circuit City's firedog team, which provides personal-computer services, home-theater installations and the integration of home electronics. It also recommends checking the Web sites of the companies that manufactured the computer's peripheral devices, such as routers and printers, to see if they need to be updated, according to a firedog tip sheet.

And while cell phones receive time cues from their service providers, consumers with PDAs -- including Blackberries and Palm Pilots -- should check their manufacturers' Web sites for possible software updates, the firedog team said.

"Some of the PDAs are going to have problems. But most of the bigger manufacturers got their software ironed out by spring," said Michael Downing, a professor at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., and author of "Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time."

Likewise, most companies shouldn't experience problems due to the change because IT departments began preparing for it months ago, before the start of daylight saving time this year, Downing said.

"A lot of the reprogramming got done before the spring change," he said.

The bright side

Daylight saving time has historically been used as a way to reduce energy usage, Prerau said. That benefit, however, has been debated, Downing pointed out.

But one big advantage of changing the date in the fall is that now daylight saving time includes Halloween, giving children one more hour of daylight as they trick-or-treat.

"That night has a very high rate of children's traffic accidents. The hope was that it would reduce that number to some extent," Prerau said.

The rate of child pedestrian accidents and deaths about quadruple on Oct. 31, he said. An extra hour of daylight means an extra hour that kids will be more visible to drivers.

Of course, the candy manufacturers are likely happy about the change too, Downing said.

"They've been pushing for it for 30 years," he said, adding that candy manufacturers think they'd be able to profit enormously if kids stay out an extra hour trick-or-treating.

It's a possibility: When a month of daylight saving time was added in the 1980s, both the barbeque industry and the golf industry saw increases in sales due to the extra hours of light people had after work, Downing said.

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[Woodmonkey]

Study: U.S. Pedestrians More Likely to Die During Daylight Savings Time Change


After clocks are turned back this weekend, pedestrians walking during the evening rush hour are nearly three times more likely to be struck and killed by cars than before the time change, two scientists calculate. Ending daylight saving time translates into about 37 more U.S. pedestrian deaths around 6 p.m. in November compared to October, the researchers report.

Their study of risk to pedestrians is preliminary but confirms previous findings of higher deaths after clocks are set back in fall.

It's not the darkness itself, but the adjustment to earlier nighttime that's the killer, said professors Paul Fischbeck and David Gerard, both of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Fischbeck, who regularly walks with his 4-year-old twins around 6 p.m., is worried enough that he'll be more cautious starting Monday.

"A three times increase in the risk is really dramatic, and because of that we're carrying a flashlight," he said.

Fischbeck and Gerard conducted a preliminary study of seven years of federal traffic fatalities and calculated risk per mile walked for pedestrians. They found that per-mile risk jumps 186 percent from October to November, but then drops 21 percent in December.

They said the drop-off by December indicates the risk is caused by the trouble both drivers and pedestrians have adjusting when darkness suddenly comes an hour earlier.

The reverse happens in the morning when clocks are set back and daylight comes earlier. Pedestrian risk plummets, but there are fewer walkers then, too. The 13 lives saved at 6 a.m. don't offset the 37 lost at 6 p.m., the researchers found.

The risk for pedestrian deaths at 6 p.m. is by far the highest in November than any other month, the scientists said. The danger declines each month through May.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety of Arlington, Va., in earlier studies found the switch from daylight saving time to standard time increased pedestrian deaths. Going to a year-round daylight saving time would save about 200 deaths a year, the institute calculated, said spokesman Russ Rader.

"Benjamin Franklin conceived of daylight savings time as a way of saving candles," Rader said Friday. "Today we know it saves lives."

The risk at 6 p.m. in November, after daylight saving time ends, is 11 times higher than the risk for the same hour in April, when daylight saving begins, according to the Carnegie Mellon researchers.

Fischbeck and Gerard used federal traffic fatality data that they've incorporated into a searchable database for different risk factors. Their analysis was not peer-reviewed or being published in a scientific journal.

But it does jibe with other peer-reviewed studies that looked at raw fatalities.

A 2001 study by John M. Sullivan at the University of Michigan looked at national traffic statistics from 1987 to 1997 and found that there were 65 crashes killing pedestrians in the week before the clocks fell back and 227 in the week after.

Fischbeck and Gerard found the increase in fatality risk after the end of daylight saving time is only for pedestrians. No such jump was seen for drivers or passengers in cars.

Once everyone "springs forward" to daylight saving time in April, there is a 78 percent drop in risk at 6 p.m., they said.

But overall for the evening rush hour, turning the clock back is a killer. In seven years there have been 250 more deaths in the fall and 139 fewer deaths in the spring.

"This clearly shows that both drivers and pedestrians should think about this daylight savings adjustment," Gerard said. "There are lives at stake."

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[conlor]

I wish they would keep DST all year.

[Woodmonkey]

I do too, even more now. I didn't know that it would save lives.

[sabadgeman]

It sort of defeats the argument you are getting earlier nights so you must then have a higher risk then??

I agree with Connie just Keep DST all year who needs daylight at 11pm at night!

[Betty Boop]

I've never met a cow yet that could tell time - nor probably even cared . I love to fall "back" but I dread it when it is once again time to spring "forward".