According to a new survey out this week, the answer is ‘Yes!’
We all love it when the clocks go back in the autumn and we gain an extra hour in bed, but according to a new study, motorists could be at greater risk of being involved in an accident during the weeks that follow.
The new study believes that our chances of having an accident whilst driving between 5pm and 8pm, during the month after the clocks have gone back increases by around 30% – meaning our drive home after work could be more dangerous than normal!
Autumn clock change increases risk of an accident by 30% between 5pm and 8pm © Copyright nick macneill and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence
According to insurance provider’s, Insure the Box, our overall chances of being involved in an accident during the next four weeks after the clock changes increases by an alarming 10%.
Insure the Box, the UK’s leading telematics car insurance providers, have collected almost 3 billion driving data miles and studied thousands of related claims during the past six years, so they have plenty of data to help them arrive at this conclusion.
The providers looked at figures taken from the months of October and November, from 2013 to 2015, to calculate what they see as the “exact risk of an accident in direct correlation with the annual autumn clock change”, at a time when the nights have turned darker.
They looked at 11,700 accident claims and 330,000 policies and concluded that drivers were 10% more likely to be involved in an accident during those four weeks after the clocks have gone back. Even more alarming was the fact that the risk for motorists jumped to 30% during the evening hours between 5pm and 8pm.
Insure the Box does recognise that accident rates generally rise during the winter months due to a change in weather conditions but confirmed that there’s a definite “snap change” around the time the clocks go back in the autumn.
Charlotte Halkett, from Insure the Box, said: “There is no doubt accident risk increases as a direct result of the clocks going back one hour in autumn.”
She also added that driving in the dark and coping with poorer weather conditions such as reduced visibility and slippery roads could be a new experience for many motorists who’ve only recently passed their driving test and according to Insure the Box, the risk of being involved in an accident for many young drivers could be drastically reduced if the annual autumn clock change was scrapped altogether.
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