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Clocks go back amid rising winter-time discontent - Germany

The Local
The clocks will be turned back one hour in the night from Saturday to Sunday, with more and more young people baffled about the purpose and annoyed by the consequences of daylight savings time. The Free Democrats have even made it a political issue.

Stories of the hassles caused by the bi-annual one-hour trade-off seem to increase year by year. In March, when the clocks turn forward by an hour, children turn up at school late or tired. This spring, kids at a high-school in Berlin even voted on whether to move their timetable an hour later, and found scientific support from sleep experts.

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Note: Comments posted below will also be published on The Local.
The-ex-pat
"Other statistics show that the time shifts have led to an increase in road accidents, particularly involving wild animals, who suddenly find cars racing through their territories at completely unexpected times."
I know what you mean, I had a chat with some deer on the way home from night shift last night. They say that the change plays havoc with their social lives. However the wild bore were OK with it. Going back and forth an hour made calling the relatives in OZ an hour closer in the summer time.
However, more to the point, why is an island of 20 miles of the coast of France an hour behind us all here.
robinson100
Yes, it is very difficult to explain to children why the clocks "have to" change twice yearly, but apparently it could be worse - my Mother used to tell me that they had "double-summertime" during the war - the clocks moved on two hours!!!
AncientBrit
Another touch of TT déjà vu
PES
Of good marketing.... as we have all painfully learned.
berlinski
Yes, Totally agree. The time change is totally pointless. All of a sudden we have darker evenings. Mid winter gets dark at 4PM so as we can have brightness one hour earlier, ie 8AM instead of 9AM. No matter to me in the morning, it is dark when I get up whether or not the clock goes back an hour or not. But I would much prefer to see the extra hour brightness at the end of the day instead of getting the feeling that it is dark all the time because I am at work during the day. Psychologists will tell you that it is important to see some daylight every day and the chance to see some daylight has been taken away from most people for no good reason.
romber58
Boooring!!!.Every year the same/similar arguments appear in the Press.
Never it seems in March when the clocks go forward.
I travel between London and Berlin regularly and the hour difference each way is nothing.I can only assume that this hoary old chestnut is given to young journalists every year as a kind of initiation .....The last gurgitations of "Das Sommerloch.Give us a rest from your crap!
Payton L. Inkletter
In May this year we here in Western Australia voted in a daylight saving referendum, at the completion of a trial, and for the fourth time in 34 years we rejected it.
The social engineers in our Parliament were so intent on forcing it upon us that this recent trial was 3 years long. Our capital city Perth has, if I recall correctly, the most unclouded sunshine hours of any capital in the world, especially in summer, so it is not as if the average citizen is sun deprived, even in our famous sunny winters.
Our Premier, Colin Barnett, then called for it to be left alone for twenty years; the engineers won't wait that long: ten years at the most I reckon, and they'd love to make the next trial twenty years long.
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