Everybody is looking forward to the nice weather in summer – but who likes changing clocks in spring for daylight savings time? According to statista.com about three quarters of the Germans could do without this. Not only is this very unpopular, but the stress of loosing one hour in spring has real and measurable consequences:
15% more employees reporting in ill during the first three days after changing to summer time, and during the first week up to 30 per cent more accidents are reported for all over Europe – presumably due to lack of sleep, which is just as dangerous as drunken driving. Maybe this year it might not be as bad as usual as the date for changing to daylight savings time coincide with the beginning of the Easter holidays in some of the Länder this year. However, due to these very special times, very few people will be travelling anyway. However, more than a third (38%) of the Germans believe that Daylight Savings Time will stay for ever, while almost the same number of people (31%) think, it will be abolished within the next 5 years.
Problems caused by the change to daylight savings time:
The statistics found at the above link summarize the following problems: 29% of the Germans have had at least once problems with changing time, such as: feeling tired, having sleeping problems, problems in concentrating, feeling irritable, was late for work, felt depressed. But not only humans, cows, too, have problems causing them to give 10% less milk.
The federal Railway Company Deutsche Bahn operates 120.000 clocks – but only 6.000 of them change automatically! And what is more, about a quarter of all the Germans change the clock the wrong way: It’s moving the hands one hour ahead in spring and one hour back in autumn. This year daylight savings time begins on March 28th in Germany. And there is still some discussion about whether we will be going back to Standard Time in October or staying on Daylight Savings Time all through the year. However, thinking of the cattle farmers having to milk their cows at 5 a.m. all through the summer, we will see just how strong their voice is within Europe.
Please note that while the countries in Europe have agreed on the last sunday in March and October for the change of time, North American countries change on the second sunday of March and the first sunday of October. On the southern hemisphere there are also some countries (or parts thereof) that change but as they are quite scattered there is very little agreement on the date. So doing business with partners there needs some extra care with regards to timing.
