Safe Speed Forums

Bring back local time like we had before the Railways!

The clock on the Moot Hall in Keswick has the right idea - it only has an hour hand - nobody needed the minutes!!
I blame digital watches for the deterioration of peoples lifestyles - always in too much of a hurry because they can see the EXACT minute, and are frightened of losing one!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Again I agree with dcb. When talking about changing the clocks, most people seem to think working hours are carved from granite.

And I plump for GMT. The UK has the honour of giving a place name to the international datum of time (or whatever we want to call GMT), so the least we can do is use it ourselves.

By the way, I'm on leave this week but my stupid rigid body clock thinks I want to wake up at this time of day, because of the bloody clocks changing.

That is an extremely London-centric view. It isn't a small minority who don't live on the prime meridan, but most of them. Nor is the distribution symmetrical about the PM. It is not +/-20 minutes. It is +8/-32 (or the otherway round, according to your sign convention).


Personally I don't really care since (now that we have 24 hour licensing , I don't live by other peoples timetables. But most of the rest of Western Europe (except Portugal & ROI) uses GMT+1 so it would make sense to use that. The fact that Norway and Sweden gets by on GMT+1 gives the lie to the complaints from Scotland that they are too far North to tolerate GMT+1.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

What a curious thread this has become

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Quite right. Provided you have a defined civil time for legal use - don't want another Great Missenden


I always assume that was because they were too mean or poor to repair it


No it is digital phones which is causing the deterioration of lifestyle. Why bother to be punctual when you can text "I am running late" seem to be the modern attitude (/hobby-horse].

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Yes, I had made a bad assumption without checking <slaps wrist>
However, I don't believe this significantly detracts from the thrust of the point I raised. However again, we seem to not disagree with GMT+1, so I'll shutup!


Yaaaay, we'll be just like Amerika

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

They are just that for a great many. I'm fortunate enough to have semi-flexi-time, but I'm one of the minority in this company; granted that may not be representative of the population, but I think the times given are a good middle ground.
The staff in our sales and service departments have their working times purposely harmonised with other companies in order to maximise their effectiveness; other departments are harmonised to them. Granted it is at the detriment of a stronger peak at commuting rush hours.


There's still the 'British' in BST

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Actually UTC + 1 is officially called Central European Time. I have a horrible suspicion that we will end up with the worst of all possible combination - UTC+1 in winter and UTC+2 in summer. Because that is what they do in France and Germany.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

It occurred to me while walking home from work that if the clocks went back a few weeks earlier it would not suddenly be dark for the evening rush hour.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

End of Septmber perhaps?

It's always struck me as odd that the amount of GMT is asymmetrical around the shortest day (less than two months before, more than three months after).

It's also always struck me as odd that the amount of GMT and BST aren't the same (7 months BST, 5 months GMT).

Doubly odd when you consider that the earliest sunset is about two weeks before the shortest day.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I imagine it is asymmetric as it is supposedly warmer after summer than before and thus people are more likely to appreciate the longer evening.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Just off the top of my head, I think it's down to something called 'precession'.

In effect, the latest/earliest sunrises/sunsets don't occur at the time of the longest/shortest days, but around 2 weeks on either side. I can't remember which way round it is.

So, for example, you'll get the earliest sunset, followed around 2 weeks later by the shortest day, followed around 2 weeks later by the latest sunrise. (I might have that completely the wrong way round)

This means that the times of the median sunsets/sunrises are going to be offset by about 2 weeks from the equinox.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Not precession, Pete. It is the elliptical orbit that is to blame. Earth is at peri-helion (nearest the sun) around the end of January and is thus travelling at its fastest speed. And at ap-helion and travelling slowest in early July. That has the effect of pushing the latest sunset forward about a week and pulling the earliest sunset forward by a week . And the sunrises the other by about a similar amount.

But the daily change around the equinox is only a few seconds per day - the flat part of a sinusoid function.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

You do mean the solstice, of course.

I once saw an Excel model of the sunrise/sunset variation - made it quite easy to visualise. But I can't really be bothered to try to reproduce it.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

You are quite right. Change is fastest at the equinox.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

The basic curiosity at the bottom of this fiddling with clocks is this: why do indoor workers arrange their working hours so that they spend the majority of the daylight hours indoors? I have worked shifts at various times in my life and I always found that the afternoon shift - usually 2pm to 10pm - was the most enjoyable. You get up in daylight all year round, have several hours of daylight for your leisure, time for a pint or two on the way home.

On the other hand: if the argument for putting the clocks forward (i.e starting work at 8am instead of 9am) - that it gives a valuable extra hour of daylight after work - is accepted why stop at one hour. If one hour is so good wouldn't, say, four hours be even better?

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

+1

mb

I've seen the point made on another forum that, if advancing the clocks by an hour all year round would do wonders for us in terms of road safety and quality of life, wouldn't it make just as much sense for Germany to do the same and adopt Ukraine time?

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

As an aside, what happens at the poles?

with increasing lattitude the concept of timezones becomes meaningless. Is there an internationally agreed standardised time zone for polar regons or do people just use whatever time suits them?

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"