1
Aug
2017
By Calvin at 07:47 GMT, 8 years ago
Shortly before Sunday 29th October at 2am this year I shall be making the usual announcement that the clocks will be ‘falling back’ by one hour at that time to resume Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and that people should be making sure they adjust the timers for their domestic security lighting in order that their home doesn’t stand out in the street as being the one not occupied in the earlier darker evenings. I’ll be saying things like ‘an unlit home in the early evening is like a calling card to burglars’; that sort of thing.
This early announcement of what is to come has been triggered by a strange email I received yesterday from a man who was asking me when would be the best time to improve his home security. I think he meant to ask me when crimes like burglary and theft around the home peaked, but it didn’t quite come over that way.
There are seasonal peaks in burglary and other crimes and one of them is certainly driven by the autumn clock change. It is for this reason why, each year, I support the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents' (RoSPA) campaign for us to adopt Single/Double British Summertime (SDST) – see their fact sheet from 2016.
They cite the following:
- Lighter evenings all year round would result in fewer people being killed and injured in road accidents
- SDST would bring significant environmental, economic and health benefits, the latter being particularly relevant to public health concerns about obesity
- The change would also align the UK with the Central European Time Zone, which would bring additional business benefits [Interesting point with respect to Brexit]
I will add one more fact and that is that the autumn spike in burglary would be less pronounced leading to fewer burglaries, thefts and vehicle crimes.
The extra two hours of daylight in the summer and the extra one hour of daylight in the winter would reduce the cover of darkness, which is an important factor when it comes to crime. This would also help to reduce the fear of crime, which can be just as debilitating for some as becoming an actual victim.
Way back in the late 1980s the Home Office were telling us that over half of criminal offences take place during the hours of darkness in the late afternoon or evening and, of the small proportion of offences occurring in conditions of semi-darkness, far more occur at dusk than dawn (thieves are tucked up in bed at dawn).
In 2012 there was a private members bill to require the UK government to carry out a cost benefit analysis of advancing time by one hour, but a handful of MPS talked it out (the bill was filibustered) in spite of overwhelming support from parliament and the public.
So, with no prospect of a change anytime soon we will continue to see more deaths on the road than we need to and more crime, which brings me back to the gentleman’s email.
My recommendation for when to carry out your home security improvements is to do them now while the weather is reasonably good and the evenings are still light. Be ready in good time for the plunge into autumn darkness.
RoSPA’s British Summertime Fact Sheet 2016 https://www.rospa.com/road-safety/advice/road-users/british-summertime-fact-sheet/
