The Dangers of Daylight Saving Time: How to Stay Safe When We Spring Forward

If you follow the news, you’ve probably heard that the annual change of our collective clocks to and from Daylight Saving Time causes more car accidents than usual, perhaps due to the possibility of sleep deprivation and the potential impact on our innate circadian rhythms. This year, the fateful day of the change to Daylight Saving Time is Sunday, March 9th, and for roughly the next eight months we’ll enjoy an extra hour of daylight. (We’ll revert back to Eastern Standard Time on Sunday, November 2nd.)

The bad news is that, as the National Institute of Health reports, because our innate circadian rhythms are tightly linked to periods of daylight and night, changes like the annual switch to and from Daylight Saving Time can negatively impact the human body and its various organs in a number of detrimental ways.

You might have experienced this personally. For example, travelers who fly through several time zones sometimes suffer from the lethargic feeling known as “jet lag,” because their normal sleeping-awake times are being significantly altered. Similarly, another NIH study notes that our so-called biological clocks can be confused even by light shining from cell phones, televisions, or other electronic devices when we’re supposed to be sleeping. But sometimes it gets even worse! The NIH has this to say about what else can happen when we mess around with our circadian rhythms:

“Drowsiness, poor coordination, and difficulty with learning and focus may occur when circadian rhythms fall out of sync short term. Long-term sleep loss and continually shifting circadian rhythms can increase the risks of obesity, diabetes, mood disorders, heart and blood pressure problems, and cancer, and can also worsen existing health issues.”

If you think that sounds bad, consider this: Other studies have shown additional deadly results caused by the time changes we all suffer through in March and November every year when we “spring forward” and “fall back” between Standard Time and Daylight Saving Time. One notable example highlights a major increase in deer-car collisions every fall when moving our clocks back causes night to arrive an hour earlier. Another study demonstrates the enormous economic cost resulting from the extra traffic deaths that appear to coincide with the change to Daylight Saving Time in the spring. Further research has even linked the annual time changes to increases in heart attacks and other deleterious medical issues.

It’s certainly a mixed bag, however, since many of us enjoy that precious extra hour of sleep that comes when we turn our clocks backwards an hour in November. Sadly, though, the same can’t be said when we lose an hour of sleep by moving the proverbial hands of time ahead every March!

For all those reasons and perhaps others, Donald Trump (among some other prominent politicians) favors doing away with the Daylight Saving Time switch altogether, and keeping our clocks the same all year long. But doing so will require congressional approval… unless the president decides to enact the change with an executive order, which would likely end up being challenged in court.

What About Car Crashes Occurring Around Daylight Saving Time in Michigan?

We already know that there are a number of studies showing the negative effects of Daylight Saving Time on human health, not to mention on the lives of countless unlucky deer every year. But what are the other impacts of the time change here in the Great Lakes State? Well, with the help of the Michigan State Police Traffic Crash Reporting Unit, we did some research to see if the switch to Daylight Saving Time in Michigan is actually as dangerous as rumor makes it out to be. To no one’s surprise, here’s what we discovered:

In the two-week period before we all “sprang forward” on March 10, 2024, there were a total of 9,458 car crashes reported statewide. In the following two weeks, after we lost an hour of very-much-needed sleep, the number of crashes across Michigan rose to a whopping 11,395. That’s more than a 20 percent increase!

Even more startling, though, is that during the early morning hours, the increase in accidents was far more pronounced. For example, last year the morning rush hours from 6-10 a.m. saw an astounding 82 percent rise in accidents from 1,781 to a painful 3,173 from the two-week period before March 10 compared to the two weeks immediately following the time change! To us, it seems obvious that losing an hour of sleep can be quite deadly for many Michigan drivers. And that made us wonder how to best help our readers prevent themselves from getting hurt on our highways over the next few weeks. Here are some suggestions.

How to Stay Safer When the Time Changes

While you can’t avoid the effects of sleep deprivation on other drivers, you can take steps to make yourself less affected. For instance, the doctors at Mercy Health offer several smart suggestions you can use to minimize the impacts of the time change on your biological clock this month, including slowly changing your bedtime in the days leading up to the change, taking a short nap when you feel fatigued, and modifying your diet to avoid foods that might interrupt your sleep cycle. Likewise, other experts offer some thoughts that can help you adjust to the extra hour of darkness we all experience in the fall, such as urging extra care while driving, avoiding caffeine anytime after lunch, and wearing light-colored garments if walking in the early evening hours when drivers aren’t yet used to the earlier onset of twilight.

What Happens if You Do Get in an Accident Around the Switch to DST… or Any Other Time of Year?

While we can’t do anything about the time change other than complaining about it like everyone else, we can help you if you’ve been hurt in a car crash by working to get you the compensation you need to recover from the accident both physically and financially. All it takes is for you to give us a call at 855-MIKE-WINS (855-645-3946) or to contact us online. But, in the immortal words of the Steve Miller Band, “time keeps on slippin’ into the future,” and there’s a three-year statute of limitations on personal injury cases in Michigan. So don’t wait another minute longer to call us if you’ve been hurt. Pick up the phone immediately and get us working for you.

Content checked by Mike Morse, personal injury attorney with Mike Morse Injury Law Firm. Mike Morse is the founder of Mike Morse Law Firm, the largest personal injury law firm in Michigan. Since being founded in 1995, Mike Morse Law Firm has grown to over 200 employees, served 40,000 clients, and collected more than $1.5 billion for victims of auto, truck and motorcycle accidents. The main office is in Southfield, MI but you can also find us in Detroit, Sterling Heights and many other locations.