Road accident fatalities could be reduced during winter

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.