How do I change time on my vans clock?

[Chris Green]

However since virtually the whole of Europe switches back and forth between daylight saving and 'normal' time on the same two dates any car sold in Europe *can* 'tell' when to change.

[Max Demian]

No! No! GMT all year round! So solar noon is 12pm (give or take), and there are roughly equal hours of daylight before and after 12pm. If people want to get up an hour earlier or later they can reset their alarms.

[Max Demian]

FM RDS also has the time, including DST. I don't think GPS signals have any DST or time zone information, do they?

[Rod Speed]

Pity about the hours they need to be at work.

[Colin Bignell]

My car has an integrated unit that includes sat-nav, radio, traffic alerts, hands-free phone and its own analogue clock display, which syncs with the clock on the dashboard. I have no idea which it picks up the time from out of that lot, but I would have thought the GPS the least likely, as I need to tell it when I am changing to European time.

[Mark Carver]

If it's same as my Peg system, switch on 'Daylight Saving Time'. With GPS sync switched on, the clock won't actually update until the 'minute' clicks over (in other words you need to wait up to 59 seconds to see the clock change).

In October you'll need to manually switch of DST again

[Graham Harrison]

I don't believe they do. But.....

In 2019 we hired a car in the far northwest of North Dakota. At one point the road ran, roughly, north/south very close to, even crossing, the Montana border. The clock in the car could not make its' mind up what the time was; the hour kept changing.

Despite the fact that it was a hire car it had the manual and apart from telling me the clock used GPS there was no information on how it worked. I guess that because it was a "sold in the USA only model" it was able to use GPS to work out where it was.

I have since investigated GPS watches and all the manuals I've found, for a price I think I can afford, have sections on how to change to Daylight times.

[Jeff Layman]

That might change. Today, tomorrow, sometime, never...

[Davey]

Sorry, I like the later lighter evenings. When the UK had a three-year trail some years ago, from 1968 to 1971, it stayed on DST, and everyone was happy. I have no need of sunny very early mornings in summer, and the subsequent loss of an hour of daylight in the evening.

[alan_m]

The answer for GMT all year round is to make the "normal" working day start at 5am with shops openings and schools also starting earlier.

Personally I would like to see BST all year round and even make it a 2 hour adjustment! During WW2 they kept 1 hour offset all year and added another hour during the summer.

[Joe]

I would guess it expects your phone to be permanently connected while you're in the car, and you don't care about the time when you're not.

My computers all pick up time from the Net, and they know what time zone they're in, so they do it automatically. Even if they were not periodically connected to the Net, they would do it, because every year there's a software update which contains the DST dates. I would assume your car does not get such updates.

[Chris Green]

When is "12pm"?

[Chris Green]

They *might* but it's pretty unlikely, it's been the way it is for a fair old time now and works reasonably well.

[Robin]

Many opposed British Standard Time: eg farmers, construction industry, Scots. See the White Paper and debates in 1970 when it was ended.

[Fredxx]

Since we have a Scottish devolved assembly they would be free to choose their 'hours'. Such a shame English people don't have an English vote, like for Sunday trading.

[Fredxx]

Same here, except in October I have to hit the button 11 times.

[Robin]

You sure? Generally prevailing view of the law in the capitals is that time is a devolved matter for Northern Ireland but reserved to Westminster for Scotland and Wales.

[Fredxx]

I don't see why Parliament would object? If the law governing DST was passed I would expect it then become a devolved matter for Scotland, and presumably Wales?

[Bob Eager]

I just press the down arrow instead of the up arrow.

[Robin]

The Scottish Parliament doesn't have power to pass a bill on reserved matters so there can't be any such "law" presented as a fait accompli. And the Westminster Parliament might continue to see good reasons to object to devolution.