Should Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) be scrapped?

Question

A British politician is calling for the country to scrap Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and align its clocks with mainland Europe, in a bid to save energy and cut road accidents.
Conservative Tim Yeo put forward a bill, to be discussed in Parliament on Friday, proposing that Britain drop GMT for three years to assess the impact of the change.
Environmental and road safety researchers
say a better alignment of waking hours and daylight hours would reduce demand for electricity and save lives during the evening rush hour.
But a similar attempt between 1969 and 1971 prompted a wave of protests from farmers and other early risers about the additional hours of morning darkness.
Campaigners for the new bill said the previous experiment showed that many more lives were saved by the extra hours of daylight in the evening.

Answer 1

no i repeat no why have you got to start messing around with things life goes on

Answer 2

This old chestnut has raised its warty head again I see. Every few years someone proposes this idea and once again the subject of reduced road casualties is being banded around to warrant it.

They said speed cameras would help cut road casualties and look what has happened there. So many cameras now that drivers are concentrating on their speedo rather than the road and road deaths have increased.

It is not the 'extra' hour of daylight that is the issue but the changing of the clock. This brings about a sudden change in the light/dark balance which catches people out, whereas we adjust naturally to the slow progressive change in the daylight hours. It's not an extra hour of daylight either we still have exactly the same number just shift it.

So the current proposal to move forward an hour and change the clocks in summer to GMT+2 (Central European Summer Time) will still result in this sudden change twice a year. I wonder if after the 3 year experiment the casulaties figures are still high if we'll keep moving them forward until we are on Australian Summer Time (GMT+11). Or if we'd change them back (that I very much doubt!)

There is no sane or rational reason why we in Britain have to change our clocks to match the rest of Europe. Portugal keeps the same time as Britain, Ireland does too and now we have member states in Eastern Europe we have countries that are on GMT+2 (GMT+3 in summer). If business can't deal with a one or 2 hour time difference then its their problem. The USA deals happily with a 5hr difference from East to West, Russia a massive 10hr difference.

The biggest impact if the clocks are changed will be in the north. It will not get light in the morning until around 10am in Aberdeen in winter but still get dark again around 4pm. Where the savings on energy will be here I have no idea as everyone will still need to switch lights on and use the heating.

Perhaps the government should spend their time more usefully by encouraging us to insulate our homes, invest in energy efficiency and bringing back Tufty and the Green Cross Code Man rather than meddling in time.

We can't scrap Greenwich Mean Time as the world takes its time from Greenwich but it would be a sacrilege if Britain stopped taking its time from there as well. Personally I think we should be fighting to get Central Europe back to GMT, after all the meridian does pass through the middle of France.

Answer 3

I believe in the South of the UK where most of the population live and work it would make little difference - people do not set their work times by any sort of recognition of the position of the sun

But in the North ( and the further north you go the more this applies), daylight hours are very valuable in the winter. Even as far "north" as Harlow, (Essex!) I found that for something like three months in the winter I was going to work in the dark and returning home so late in the day that any daylight had virtually vanished by the time I got home. All that the change to summertime did for me was to make the mornings dark for another month without any evening compensation.

I cannot believe that the statistics for accidents are really true, as they do not seem to have been considerd on this sort of geographical basis and therefore I would DEFINITELY vote for the status quo.

Several answers have attributed 'daylight saving ' to dates after 1914 - I have reason to think that it actually goes back to the late 1800s, when for most people the only artificial light was candles or oil lamps, making work at home almost impossible for the women who had to work in the factories until 6.00pm or later. The men of course wanted their dinner/tea on the table when they got home and expected clean clothes to be available each Sunday.

Answer 4

No I don't think GMT should be scrapped, as it presents the true time measurement.
What I would do if I had the power, is keep GMT all year, but allow schools and Company's, to adjust the times they open, allowing for the amount of light available.
So in the summertime, rather than move the clocks 1 hour forward, schools, and other organisations could open at 8am, instead of 9am, making more use of the daylight.
I think it is a waste of time having to adjust all equipment with a time setting, twice every year.

Answer 5

Greenwich Mean Time is the old name for what is now called UTC (or Zulu in the US military). It is the local standard time on the prime meridian (the line of zero degrees longitude). The GMT name was originally given because that meridian passes through Greenwich, England, the site of the Royal Observatory. If you visit Greenwich, you can see a brass marker in the pavement that shows where the meridian line is.

Answer 6

it is summertime that should be scrapped.

If those businesses in the south want to align themselves with their european allies they should just go to work at 7 o'clock instead of causing the whole country to have to change.
GMT has been a standard for not just this country but for the whole world, do we really want to go back to the days when every town and village had its own time settings making it almost impossible to publish a timetable for even the simplest bus or train service.
Here we are in the 21st century and some idiots want us to return to the 19th century. These people are too selfish to hold office of any kind.

Answer 7

Yes i think gmt should be scrapped , times are changing life styles are not as they where in the 60s / 70s, plus i get fed up going around changing all the clocks etc.

Answer 8

No, we should keep GMT as the reference point for time,we should stop putting the clock forward an hour in the summertime,and keep it as it is in Wintertime all year round,playing with the clock really messes people up.
Its another case of European interference in the U.K,s affairs.

Answer 9

I live in the SE and in the summer it is light at 04.30 and dark again by 21.30. I am switching my light on about 21.00 burning electricity while at 04.30 I am trying to sleep as the sun rises. More than 8 million people who live in this region alone, could save on their electricity every night, helping to reduce their bills and global warming. In the winter children are coming home from school at dusk (it is dark at 15.45). Many families have both parents working and these children are vulnerable on the roads. It makes sense to change, but then we are british and change is not something we take to readily even when the benefits are clearly visible.

Answer 10

No, I think it is nice to have the light nights after being at work all day. Also the last time this was tried we had far more accidents with children going to school on a morning.

Answer 11

It no point to scrap the GMT or BST, this is what makes us special. all the world have to refer to us as the central point of time. If we scrap it and join Europe time, then whats the point of keeping the pound (£) and not joining the "euro".

We should keep what we have, and not change for nothing or nobody.