Our paper on The effects of daylight saving time on vehicle crashes in Minnesota, which has just been accepted to the Journal of Safety Research was discussed on today's John Hines show on WCCO radio.
Daylight saving time (DST), implemented as an energy saving policy, impacts many other aspects of life; one is road safety. Based on vehicle crash data in Minnesota from 2001 to 2007, this paper evaluates long- and short-term e ffects of DST on daily vehicle crashes. To provide evidence to explain the causes of more/fewer crashes in DST, we examine the impact of DST on crashes in four periods of a day: 3 am-9 am, 9 am-3 pm, 3 pm-9 pm, 9 pm-12 pm. The eff ects of risk and exposure to traffic are also separated. Our statistical models not only include weather conditions and dummy variables for days in DST as independent variables, but also consider traffic volumes on major roads in di fferent periods of a day. Our major fi nding is that the short-term eff ect of DST on crashes on the morning of the first DST is not statistically signi ficant. Moreover, it is interesting to notice that while DST per se is associated with fewer crashes during dusk, this is in part off set because it is also associated with more traffic on roads (and hence more crashes). Our path analysis shows that overall DST reduces crashes.
