Friday, March 29, AD 2024 1:47am

End the Clock Follies!

As you “lose” an hour of sleep tomorrow, please recall the history of this bad idea.  Daylight Savings Time in the US was ushered in by Congress on March 19, 1918 with the Standard Time Act of 1918 as a temporary war measure, and, son of a gun, Daylight Savings Time was repealed by Congress in 1919, over the veto of President Wilson.  Daylight Savings Time came back with World War II.  From 1945-1966 local communities were left to determine whether to observe Daylight Savings Time which normally ran from April to September.  Congress in 1966 made Daylight Savings Time national with the Uniform Time Act, with Daylight Savings Time running from the last Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October.  In response to the Energy Crisis on 1973, Congress started Daylight Savings Time in 1974 on January 6 and in 1975 on February 23.  Parents were real thrilled with their kids walking to school in the dark and the start and stop dates for Daylight Savings Time went back to April and September in 1976.  (I was in high school in 1974-75 and this first awakened in me the realization that most Congress Critters were no smarter than the average rock.)  Congress in 2005 tinkered with Daylight Savings Time again, setting it from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November.

Proposals are now cropping up around the country to stop this semi annual folly, and I strongly support them.

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DJH
DJH
Saturday, March 13, AD 2021 10:41am

Daylight Savings works for me. I would rather not live under standard EST all year. This is an area though I would like to see local control. We live in the west part of the EST time zone. I am sure things are very different over on the east side of EST.
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But, as much as I like EDT, DC control is much, much worse. I guess I can learn to live with the sun setting at 9p-ish as oppose to 10p-ish during the summer.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Saturday, March 13, AD 2021 11:05am

The first day of DST depresses me. Don’t know why. It just does. Every year. O well. I’m OK with the Fall back thing.

Dave G.
Dave G.
Saturday, March 13, AD 2021 11:10am

My problem isn’t those who want to abolish DST. My problem is those who want to make DST the year round standard. Here in Ohio, there was a push two years ago to make DST the norm. Fortunately saner heads prevailed. For now.

David WS
David WS
Saturday, March 13, AD 2021 11:57am

I go to bed when tired, wake up at sunrise most times of year, no alarm clock. DST makes little difference in sleep time.
Meals are different. I usually eat breakfast at 10AM, lunch 1pm and Dinner at 6PM. Intermittent Fasting (IF), 8hr eating window and 16hr fast. My body is used to that timing. I’m bracing for impact. Oh well, it’s Lent.
(Try IF, you’ll feel better and keep weight off, especially men.)

David WS
David WS
Saturday, March 13, AD 2021 12:02pm

T Shaw, our Circadian rhythm works in a latent direction, That’s why we feel more of a bump in the spring. And why there’s more jet lag flying east than west.

Rudolph Harrier
Rudolph Harrier
Saturday, March 13, AD 2021 12:32pm

In school I was always told that Daylight Saving Time was necessary for farmers to be able to get their work done. This always amused me since, having grown up on a farm, I knew that farmers simply did things when they needed to be done, regardless of what the clock said.

Frank
Frank
Saturday, March 13, AD 2021 12:48pm

One of my favorite summer jobs, in the mid 70’s in northwest Illinois, was driving rural delivery routes for a local dairy, subbing for regular drivers during their vacations. We carried the whole range of dairy products, plus milk and eggs. At least 75% of the customers were farms and Mom & Pop cafes.
I’ll never forget the anecdote related to me by one of the drivers, in the summer of 1975. The previous winter, during one of the extended DST periods, he had come within seconds of running into a child waiting for the school bus in the dark. The boy had been standing too close to the road and was invisible in his dark coat until it was nearly too late. That story convinced me for all time that DST in the winter is very poor policy.

Frank
Frank
Saturday, March 13, AD 2021 12:49pm

Plus bread and eggs. Senior moment, sorry. 😁

PK
PK
Saturday, March 13, AD 2021 2:57pm

I think, though I was young enough I cannot say for sure, that one of the first things I remember hearing about Daylight Savings was that farmers thought it was stupid because cows don’t care about the clock.

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