Daylight savings time changes and construction accidents

Recent research has shown that the frequency of traffic accidents is influe nced by changes in clocks from standard time to daylight savings time. A st udy was conducted to determine if a similar phenomenon existed with the occ urrence of injuries in the construction industry. Data relating to injury c laims of construction workers in the state of Washington for 1990-1996 were analyzed to determine if stress due to the change in time from standard to daylight savings in the spring and from daylight savings to standard lime in the fall, respectively resulted in an increase and decrease in construct ion accidents. For spring and fall, with respect to injury frequency, the i njury frequency for the Monday following the change of time was compared wi th that of the Monday before the change, and the Monday I week later. No st atistical differences were found to exist. In addition, injury statistics f or the week before the change were compared with the week following the cha nge. Again, no statistical differences between the two were found to exist.