The end of British Summer Time (Daylight Saving Time) in the autumn brings with it the ‘hidden curfew’ impacting predominantly women and their freedom to exercise.
The Let’s Lift the Curfew campaign from This Girl Can points to research stating:
- 72% of women in the UK change outdoor activity routines during winter
- 55% of women feel uncomfortable exercising outdoors alone after dark, compared to 33% of men
- 67% of women believe rising online misogyny and anti-women attitudes are making women feel less safe outdoors
New research published by Terra API analysed the habits of 7,457 runners (both males and female) across 83 cities and found:
- Across the year, sunrise and sunset move by hours, but the busy times for outdoor exercise barely move. When the clocks go back, sunset jumps an hour overnight, but evening workouts start only about 4 minutes earlier. People keep their time and go out in the dark instead.
- What does change is that runners spend less of their route in parks and other green spaces in the dark. The eight biggest drops are all in the UK and Ireland: Belfast and Bournemouth (36% less green space on dark runs), Newcastle (35%), Nottingham (31%), Birmingham (30%), Southampton (29%), Sheffield (28%) and Glasgow (24%).
- In London, runners stop running in Richmond Park (the self-proclaimed darkest place in London), Dulwich Park and Greenwich Park but keep running in Battersea Park and Hyde Park.
The Terra API tool maps, for several cities across the UK and others beyond, where runners Stopped, Started, or Continued running once the mornings and nights got dark. The image for London is shown with this article.