AUTHOR Robert Gillespie

Central European Time, A Safer Time?

There are hundreds of car accidents on British roads yearly and new government estimation is that moving to CEST time would save several lives each year and prevents hundreds of accidents. So the changing of time saves lives, let’s do it straight away!

Unfortunately it’s not as easy as just changing the clocks back; it would be difficult for many if you were to just change the time. One big object is that of the aviation authority who say that they would take 5 years to adapt to such a change. Also to take into account is the wider effect to the economy and society.

Despite objections its estimated that it will save a total of 54 lives a year due to not causing as many accidents because of darkness, it’s also claimed that it would prevent around 185 serious road accidents yearly. If it’s a factor of saving lives I for one would turn my clock back all day long but obviously its unfortunately not that simple.

What would changing to CEST (or CET in winter) time mean for the UK?

CEST time is an hour ahead of our current time and CEST stands for Central European Summer Time. This would cause the roads to be lighter in the morning but darker in the night at summer, the idea behind this is that a large amount of drivers drive to work in the morning whilst it’s still dark causing several accidents, however it would be darker at night but in summer it doesn’t get darker till later anyways. The idea is one that will save lives definitely but it also have a huge effect on the UK on a whole.

Having worked in the car rental industry for over 15 years, he really knows his stuff. Rob heads up our marketing department and as a keen traveller, always has a new location to talk about. Particularly if there is a golf course nearby.

Robert Gillespie

Traveller