|
Research suggests that if clocks were moved
forward an hour instead of backwards for the winter months it
would reduce the number of road accidents - 14th January 2008
Road accident claims in the UK could be significantly
reduced with hundreds of lives saved by moving clocks forward
rather than backwards during the
winter driving months.
Fatalities could be reduced by up to 6
percent or around 200 lives according to
yesinsurance.co.uk
if this were done.
The research suggests that although during
the darker mornings
road accident would increase, this is outweighed by a larger
decrease in the number of afternoon and evening road accidents
particularly ones resulting in fatalities.
Paul Purdy of yesinsurance.co.uk, said: "In
2006, deaths on British roads totalled 522 in the five hours
between 06:00 and 11:00, rising to 961 from 3pm to 8pm.
“Accident statistics show that darkness increases the level of
risk on the roads and our own experience of making insurance
payments on
car accidents mirrors this pattern.
Moving clocks forward in winter would help
to reduce accidents later in the day, whilst the corresponding
increase in accidents earlier in the day would be smaller.”
They claim if the clocks had moved forward
instead of back based on 2006 figures that road accident
fatalities could have been reduced from the actual figure of
3,172 to 2,989, with serious injuries dropping from 28,673 to
27,000.
Cambridge
University engineers produced a similar
report in 2007 with similar findings putting the reduction
in road accident fatalities at 104 and the number of seriously
injured reducing by 450 which they claim would save the
National Health Service £200
million a year.
We can offer further help with legal advice
on
whiplash compensation claims. Contact us today for No
win No fee advice.
|
