Time Change is a Good Time for Household and Car Safety Checks

(PORTLAND, Ore.) - Oregonians will officially move their clocks backward one hour at 2:00 AM Sunday, November 2nd as Daylight Saving Time ends. As a result, some nightclubs, bars, taverns and other licensed premises that stay open until 2:00 AM or 2:30 AM will gain an extra hour of alcohol sales. According to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, some liquor licensees lost a half hour of liquor sales in March when Daylight Saving Time began. Twice a year, when Daylight Savings Time begins or ends, you should make it a habit to not only change your clocks, but do a few other semi-annual tasks that will improve safety in your home... Do these things every 6 months when you reset your clocks: * Check and replace the batteries in your smoke and carbon monoxide (CO) alarms. Replace any smoke alarms older than ten years. Replace any CO alarms older than five years. * Prepare a disaster supply kit for your house (water, food, flashlights, batteries, blankets). Once you've created your home disaster kit, use the semi-annual time change to check its contents (including testing/replacing flashlight batteries). * A COLD winter is coming! Make a "winter car-emergency kit" now and put your vehicle! (Don't know what to include? Do an Internet search for "car emergency kit" and you'll find lots of ideas!) It's a good idea to carry a car-emergency kit in your car year-round, but be sure to add cold-weather gear to your general car-emergency kit each fall. In cold weather, even a very minor car problem or flat tire can be deadly serious, or at the very least, miserable to deal with, unless you're well prepared. * Check home and outbuilding storage areas for hazardous materials. Discard (properly, please) any which are outdated, no longer used, or in poor condition. Move any which are within reach of kids or pets. * Check and discard expired medications - those dates really DO have meaning - some very common over-the-counter medications can cause serious problems due to change through aging. Remember to check the AGE of your detectors On November 2nd, 2007, the U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), press release #08-062, suggests not only to check/change batteries in alarms, but also check the age of the alarms and replace older alarms. The CPSC suggests that consumers Also:
* replace smoke alarms every ten years and
* replace carbon monoxide (CO) alarms every five years. Sensors in smoke and carbon monoxide alarms degrade and lose effectiveness over time through environmental contamination and age. Now that we have the safety part out of the way, here are some facts about Daylight Savings Time from Wikipedia: Daylight saving time is the convention of advancing clocks so that afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring and are adjusted backward in autumn. Modern DST was first proposed in 1907 by the English builder William Willett. Many countries have used it since then; details vary by location and change occasionally. The practice is controversial. Adding daylight to afternoons is a benefit for retail, sports, and other activities that require sunlight after working hours. It causes problems for farming, entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun. It is reported that traffic fatalities are reduced when there is extra afternoon daylight, but its effect on health and crime is less clear. Although an early goal of DST was to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting, formerly a primary use of electricity, modern heating and cooling usage patterns greatly differ and research about how DST currently affects energy use is limited and contradictory. DST's occasional clock shifts present other challenges, according to Wikipedia. They complicate timekeeping and can disrupt meetings, travel, billing, recordkeeping, medical devices, and heavy equipment. Many computer-based systems can adjust their clocks automatically, but this can be limited and error-prone, particularly when DST rules change. ----------------------------------------------------------- Special thanks to Wikipedia and The Police Notebook, University of Oklahoma Police Department.