Daylight saving road risk warning for drowsy drivers

William Ton | September 30, 2023

Sleep-starved drivers are being urged to stay vigilant on the roads as some people lose an hour of shut-eye with the shift to daylight saving.

Clocks in NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT will go forward one hour from 2am on Sunday.

The change means Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart will be an hour ahead of Brisbane, 90 minutes in front of Darwin and three hours ahead of Perth.

Large population studies point to a small increase in car accidents in the days following the start of daylight saving, Flinders University sleep expert Leon Lack said.

“The population (experiencing daylight saving), in general, is under a little bit of distress, a little bit of pressure and then a little bit of sleep loss in those first few nights and that has been found to have some impact,” he told AAP.

Night owls are particularly susceptible to the effects of the time change as their internal body clocks tend to be not perfectly synchronised with a 24-hour cycle and tick a little slower than the rest of the population.

But Professor Lack said people could alleviate the pain of a sudden earlier wake-up by going to bed a bit earlier on a couple of nights before the shift and not having a late sleep-in over the weekend.

Daylight saving will end on Sunday, April 7.

Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory do not have daylight saving.