Daylight Saving Time Permanent in 2023: Senate Unanimously Approves Bill

[dlgoff]

Daylight saving will be permanent starting in 2023 according to the national news on PBS TV:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation...s-bill-to-make-daylight-saving-time-permanent.

The bipartisan bill, named the Sunshine Protection Act, would ensure Americans would no longer have to change their clocks twice a year. But the bill still needs approval from the House, and the signature of President Joe Biden, to become law.']The bipartisan bill, named the Sunshine Protection Act, would ensure Americans would no longer have to change their clocks twice a year. But the bill still needs approval from the House, and the signature of President Joe Biden, to become law.

 

[Astronuc]

That has to be one of the stupidest laws, and biggest waste of time and resources. They should just keep standard time. People can just get up 1 hour earlier, or 6 am every day, or 1 or 2 hours before they need to on the job.

 

[256bits]

Does any other area around the world have the clock switch twice a year.
Economically it makes sense, no more clocks being an hour early, or late, makes sense.
Health reasons ? a red herring.

Culturally - keep it as it makes us NAmericans's all that much different as we scuttle about changing clocks on microwaves, walls, stoves and any else that is not on the IOThings.

 

[strangerep]

Does any other area around the world have the clock switch twice a year.

Sure -- a majority of states in Australia do it.

Economically it makes sense, no more clocks being an hour early, or late, makes sense.
Health reasons ? a red herring.

When I lived in NSW (a southern state) I liked DST -- but I worked "normal" hours. In contrast, my mother always had a 5am start and didn't like DST.

Now I live in QLD and I'm happy to keep standard time (since in summer it's so warm that we don't want an "extra" hour of sunlight after we get home).

When NSW people complain about the inconvenience of adjusting between their time and QLD's, I ignore it because, well, when you live in QLD, who cares about what's happening in NSW or VIC?

[Just kidding.]

 

[DrGreg]

Does any other area around the world have the clock switch twice a year.

Yes, all the coloured areas (taken from Wikipedia's Daylight saving time by country)

The UK tried running Summer Time all year round from 1968 to 1971; I don't know why it was abandoned in 1971.

 

[jbriggs444]

It does not matter to me much whether we run standard time or daylight savings time. Or switch between the two on a regular schedule.

What bothers me is when government manufactures a need to change the pattern from time to time. And then us worker bees have to go into all of our automated devices and update the time settings there.

 

[dlgoff]

daylight savings time

I learned there is no s. It's just saving.

 

[Vanadium 50]

A passed bill in only one house of Congress is a long way from being a law. Besides, what is the federal power that authorized this. The Commerce Clause?

This was tried in the 70's. It proved unpopular.

 

[trainman2001]

Many European countries go on "Summer Time" too. Funny story. We had just moved to Düsseldorf, Germany four months before in early 1999. Our daughter and son in law came to visit. We had driven to Köln and were at the main train station and we looked up at the clock and it was one hour later than our watches. We arrogantly thought (being Americans) that the station clock was incorrect. When we went inside, every clock one "wrong" by one hour. In Germany "Summer Time" started one week before it did in the USA. Of course our watches were wrong.

Since this was Germany, and people are expected to know the correct thing to do, they didn't broadcast the "Spring ahead" warnings on all the local TV shows, besides, even if they did our German wasn't good enough yet to understand what they were telling us. That one week difference screwed me up the next Fall, when I was one hour late to work when the time changed again and I didn't know it.

As in most expatriate experiences, you learn the culture by crashing into figurative walls.

Leaving summer time all year long means it won't get light in Louisville, KY until after 8 in the morning in the winter. We're at the very far western edge of the the Eastern time zone. It's nice here because it's still light at 5:00 p.m. in the winter making the drive home easier, and with daylight time during December it will be light even later. The morning's don't matter to me and my wife. Retirees don't have to get up and go to work in the dark. Paid my dues.

 

[Janus]

This was tried in the 70's. It proved unpopular.

That's what I keep telling people when they bring it up. As much as they think they'll like the extra hour of light in the evening, they'll be giving up an hour of light in the morning. In the Winter, that means driving to work in the dark, kids waiting for School buses in the dark...

 

[Vanadium 50]

Yup. That's what happened. But as th say "this time its different"

 

[Klystron]

Yup. That's what happened. But as they say "this time it's different"

Yep. The New York Times claims one reason for the change to regular DST stimulates the merchant economy as people will go out more in the evenings. Sure...

 

[256bits]

View attachment 298425
Yes, all the coloured areas (taken from Wikipedia's Daylight saving time by country)

The UK tried running Summer Time all year round from 1968 to 1971; I don't know why it was abandoned in 1971.

You notice the smart people in Saskatchewan are colored grey.
And its an agricultural area.

made me wonder if the dairy cows like Standard time or Daylight for there milking session :)
they have to get up, or go to bed in the dark to you know,

 

[Astronuc]

Not permanent DST, but permanent ST

How permanent standard time could save lives, explained by a sleep expert​

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/04/07/standard-time-health-daylight

If people want to get up one earlier fine. If folks want to stay out late fine. Just stop with the clock changes.

In March, the Senate took a side, approving the Sunshine Protection Act, which aims to make daylight saving time permanent, beginning in 2023. The act still has to go to the House and the president.

Shifting back and forth between times has been associated with an increased risk of heart attacks and motor vehicle crashes — especially in the spring, says Charles Czeisler, chief of the Division of Sleep And Circadian Disorders at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Shifting to one time could cut down on these effects and increase productivity. But Czeisler says there’s a problem with the Senate’s legislation: It settles on the wrong time.

Permanent daylight saving time would move everyone in the U.S. one timezone eastward, he explains. People in California would move to Mountain Time, for example, and folks on the East Coast would shift to Atlantic Time.

“There's extensive research that being on the western edge of a time zone increases the risk of multiple different cancers,” Czeisler says. “A time zone is 15 degrees wide, and every five degrees that an individual lives westward within a time zone increases risk of certain types of cancers in a startlingly high manner.”

. . .

 

[vela]

Here's a nice visualization of the various options.

http://andywoodruff.com/blog/where-to-hate-daylight-saving-time-and-where-to-love-it/

Abolishing DST looks the best to me.

 

[DaveC426913]

That's what I keep telling people when they bring it up.

Yup. That's what happened. But as th say "this time its different"

It is. Boomers - who now have grown up kids - and who can sleep-in - don't care about morning sunlight. They'll swing the vote.

 

[jtbell]

I'm retired, so I don't have to get up early for work (let alone school). When I go out on a day-trip to a hobby show or whatever, I like having the extra daylight time so I don't have to drive home in the dark. So I'd vote for keeping "summer time" year-round.

 

[collinsmark]

Think of the sundials. All those poor sundials!

I'm with @Astronuc. I'm OK with getting rid of the back-and-forth time changes, but we should stick with permanent standard time, not daylight saving time.

With standard time, the standard sundial's local noon, where the sundial's shadow is at a minimum, would only be in error with respect to official, clock-noon by approximately +/- 30 minutes, depending on the geographic location within the time zone.

But with daylight saving time, 30 minutes is the best case scenario, where local noon deviates by at least 30 minutes and as much as 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Why would people want this?! It makes no sense to me. Don't noon and midnight mean anything to anybody anymore?! Gaah!

 

[berkeman]

Think of the sundials. All those poor sundials!

https://www.facebook.com/badsciencejokes

 

[pinball1970]

That's what I keep telling people when they bring it up. As much as they think they'll like the extra hour of light in the evening, they'll be giving up an hour of light in the morning. In the Winter, that means driving to work in the dark, kids waiting for School buses in the dark...

My mother said something about it years ago. Said it was dangerous for kids going to school in the dark.
The change always messes me up body clock wise, GMT to BST.

EDIT: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11643098