IT'S that time of year again. Time to mess with our minds over the strange ritual of changing the clocks.

It has never made much sense to me: you go to bed, and while you are asleep, someone slips in an extra hour, so when you wake up your body clock is out of sync with the official time.

If you are lucky, you will adjust in a day or two, but if not, the disruption to normal sleeping and eating patterns could go on for weeks. The experience is a bit like extended jet lag, except there's no sunshine holiday to compensate.

The result of changing the clocks in the autumn is that dawn and dusk come earlier, giving us lighter mornings and darker evenings. But by December, we will be travelling to and from work in darkness anyway.

For me, the change is like flicking a switch in my body, changing me from healthy and energetic to lethargic and craving stodgy food.

In others, the dark winter months bring on a condition called seasonal affective disorder, which can cause depression and an overwhelming need to buy property in the sun, just to escape the British winters.

And come next March, the clocks will change again, except that someone will be thieving back the hour we have just been given. What is the point?

It's a question the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents believes should be debated seriously. It wants us to stay on British Summer Time throughout the winter, then go on to double summer time in spring - in other words, Greenwich Mean Time plus two hours.

The move would not only bring us into line with most of the rest of Europe but the lighter evenings would also result in an estimated 450 fewer deaths and serious injuries on our roads every year.

The last time we tried it (between 1968 and 1971) around 2,500 road deaths and serious injuries were prevented, but a powerful lobby group headed by Scots, farmers, and possibly Scottish farmers, knocked any permanent change on the head. People in the far north just didn't fancy waiting until 10am for daylight.

Since then, however, we have had devolution and people have become even more reliant on cars, so what's the problem?

We could enjoy lighter winter evenings here in the south and let the Scots and Northern Irish opt out with their own time zone.

In the meantime, I'm off to curl up on the settee with a hot water bottle, a pile of crumpets and the remote control. Wake me up when winter's over.

First published: November 4