Road Safety - Daylight Savings and Mr Beattie

Mr Beattie has highlighted how polititians will lie to win votes.

Having been a surfer all my life I actually preferred not having daylight savings so I could get a surf in before work and still make it to work on time.

However with small to medium business in Queensland at a distinct dissadvantage to the majority of states it is time to have a look at the lies keeping Queensland from having daylight savings.

• Curtains will fade - Cracks me up everytime, the polititians are calling people dumb. And if they don't realise the curtains are exposed to just as much sunlight no matter what time they want to make it, then maybe they are.
• Children can't sleep - My experience is that the children can play outdoors later in the day, enabling dinner to be cooked without interuption and the children being more worn out, hence sleeping far better.

Now we have the lie that it will increase skin cancer rates. However when you consider with daylight savings in place outdoor workers taking lunch breaks will have a break during the peak U.V. exposure period and hence more likely to reduce the rate of skin cancer.

But when it comes to really saving lives Mr Beattie ignores the truth for lies that will keep the votes of the farmers.

Studies have shown that daylight savings can reduce significantly pedestrian fatalities!!!! And also reduce vehicle occupant injuries!!!!

In a paper published in 2004 The effects of daylight and daylight saving time on US pedestrian fatalities and motor vehicle occupant fatalities. Coate D, Markowitz S. Accident Analysis and Prevention. 2004 May;36(3):351-7.

Department of Economics, Rutgers University, 360 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Newark, NJ 07102, USA. coate@andromeda.rutgers.edu

This paper analyzes the effects of daylight and daylight saving time (DST) on pedestrian and motor vehicle occupant fatalities in the United States. Multivariate analyses of county level data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System for 2-week periods in 1998 and 1999 are used. Results show that full year daylight saving time would reduce pedestrian fatalities by 171 per year, or by 13% of all pedestrian fatalities in the 5:00-10.00 a.m. and in the 4:00-9:00 p.m. time periods. Motor vehicle occupant fatalities would be reduced by 195 per year, or 3%, during the same time periods.

An earlier study in 1995 in the American Journel of Health Daylight saving time and motor vehicle crashes: the reduction in pedestrian and vehicle occupant fatalities.
Ferguson SA, Preusser DF, Lund AK, Zador PL, Ulmer RG. American Journal of Public Health. 1995 Jan;85(1):92-5.

To highlight the dramatic decrease in pedestrian fatalities I have copied the graph below


Highlighting that the ability to see the pedestrian during these crucial drive home hours makes a huge reduction in the probability of being hit by a car!

I'll keep it simple for Mr Beattie as it's quite obvious he isn't very intelligent if he believes the skin cancer argument.

Regards
Daniel