Every year, I think about how I can destroy daylight saving time. My children are not built like clocks and neither am I. We have internal rhythms that are much more closely aligned with the natural light than with some artificial insanity where we all join hands and change our clocks forward and back and forward and back.
Daylight Saving Time (DST) was originally enacted about 35 years after time zones were instituted as a way to save electricity during World War I. It was only around for a year — repealed by 1919 — becoming a local matter until World War II when it was instituted year for over 3 and a half years for the same reasons.
After September 1945, Daylight Saving Time again became a matter of local preference for states and cities with most places observing it from the last Sunday in April through the last Sunday in September. This meant that during a road trip a person could have to adjust and readjust their watch multiple times just to keep up.
By 1966, a federal law, Uniformed Time Act, was passed and went into effect in 1967, which required all states to observe DST unless they passed a state law to exempt themselves. Today, only Arizona and Hawaii do not observe DST.
Daylight Saving Time was lengthened by 4 weeks in 2007 to again save energy although proof of that is hard to find as the last good reports were from the 1970s when DST was used to help with the US energy crisis and our energy usage patterns have changed much since in the last 4 decades. In fact, recent studies have shown that some states find DST increases energy use because people run their air-conditioners more while other states see benefits. And it’s not simply an energy issue. Farmers would love to end DST since it disrupts their schedules by delaying sunrise, which is one reason why it was not lengthened further as the bill originally proposed. Another study found a drop in traffic accidents the week we shift to DST since more people are driving home in daylight.
For me, the idea we would just play with the clocks to try and control energy usage in ways that aren’t even shown to work uniformly is annoying and creepy although the traffic accident study makes me feel a little less anti-DST when I’m up at all hours of the day and night with my confused children. At least it’s a good excuse to move to Hawaii.
Sources:
- Does Daylight Saving Time Conserve Energy? from Scientific American
- Daylight Time from Astronomical Applications Department (US Navy Website)
- History of time in the United States from Wikipedia
