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Following Daylight Saving Time legislation in the US

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The Spring Time Change Saves Lives

This article on the New York Times web site by David Gerard that indicates positive effects for the “spring forward”, due to extended daylight for travelers, but he is quick to point out the problems with the “fall back” change:

The return to standard time in the fall, however, has much more pronounced effects, with a steep increase in early-evening pedestrian fatalities overwhelming the reduction in morning fatalities. In fact, the spike in pedestrian deaths is so sharp that we believe that there are actually two effects – the first associated with the amount of ambient light affecting visibility and the second with a mental adjustment by drivers and pedestrians to the time change.

An article from the National Safety Commission cites work by Gerard and his colleague Paul Fischbeck, and also references other studies with similar findings.

Spring Forward at Your Own Risk: Daylight Saving Time and Fatal Vehicle Crashes

Research published in October 2014 continues to show that DST transitions are deadly to drivers.  From the abstract:

DST alters fatal crash risk in two ways: disrupting sleep schedules and reallocating ambient light from the morning to the evening.

The increased risk persists for the first six days of DST, causing a total of 302 deaths at a social cost of $2.75 billion over the 10-year sample period.

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