Spring Forward at Your Own Risk: Daylight Saving Time and Fatal Vehicle Crashes

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Smith, Austin C.
• 署名单位: University System of Ohio; Miami University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20140100
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 65-91
• 关键词: regression-discontinuity designs; occupant fatalities; light level; sleep; performance; PREVALENCE; accidents; KNOWLEDGE; IMPACT

摘要

Daylight Saving Time (DST) impacts over 1.5 billion people, yet many of its impacts on practicing populations remain uncertain. Exploiting the discrete nature of DST transitions and a 2007 policy change, I estimate the impact of DST on fatal automobile crashes. My results imply that from 2002-2011 the transition into DST caused over 30 deaths at a social cost of $275 million annually. Employing four tests to decompose the aggregate effect into an ambient light or sleep mechanism, I find that shifting ambient light only reallocates fatalities within a day, while sleep deprivation caused by the spring transition increases risk.