DST (2018)

[formulanone]

I 100 percent dislike DST. It's a concept past its time (pun unintended)—one that seems to only create unnecessary difficulty in the modern information era. Most people don't live and work by the solar clock anymore. The US needs to drop the idiocy and either stick with standard time, or permanently move forward an hour.

But.. But.. But... KIDS! GO! TO! SCHOOL! IN! THE! DARK!!!!

I feel like that's largely a strawman that no one actually believes except Fox News watchers and truly crazy people.

Unless you're not serious.

Actually my feeling is that high school starting time is deliberately set up so that kids get used to waking up in a dark all the year round...

School bus and parental pick-up schedules, that's why.

Yep, and damn those spoiled brats - they deserve 5 AM alarm clock! But god forbids poor babies walk 50 feet in the dark...
It is really one way or the other, you cannot have that cake and eat it too.

Do you actually have any children, or are you just looking for attention?

You're the only one dragging out the "think of the children" chestnut, and I really don't care one way or another about time changes.

Actually I am laughing at that argument. Ever heard of sarcasm?

Oh, the invisible sarcasm flag...how did I miss that one?

It's much less worse than the adults who swear by the inherent dangers of missing an hour's rest.

[MNHighwayMan]

Actually I am laughing at that argument. Ever heard of sarcasm?

I sure have–sarcasm extraordinaire here–but if there's one thing that just doesn't convey over the Internet, it's sarcasm. At least not without marking it explicitly, which is self-defeating in purpose...

Actually people are much happier when their waking and sleeping times align to the solar clock, and small inexperienced people are quite a bit safer walking to school when it's light out.  I feel your comments are a strawman, because it's so easy to disprove them with a sunrise/sunset chart.

As someone who works third shift and doesn't give a shit about what time actual sunrise/sunset occurs, I can very much do without the arbitrary loss and gain of an hour twice a year.

[GenExpwy]

I 100 percent dislike DST. It's a concept past its time (pun unintended)–one that seems to only create unnecessary difficulty in the modern information era. Most people don't live and work by the solar clock anymore. The US needs to drop the idiocy and either stick with standard time, or permanently move forward an hour.

But.. But.. But... KIDS! GO! TO! SCHOOL! IN! THE! DARK!!!!

I feel like that's largely a strawman that no one actually believes except Fox News watchers and truly crazy people.

Unless you're not serious.

I remember the winter of 1973-'74, when we had winter DST. That actually was a big issue then. A lot of parents really were seriously upset.

It's easy to sit there and say how much simpler year-round DST would be, but if you actually implemented it, you would be roasted alive in December and January by today's more paranoid safety-conscious parents. And if you had year-round Standard Time, most people in July and August would wonder why we're wasting daylight on pre-waking hours rather than evening-activity hours.

Maybe tweak the dates if you want, but the current Daylight Saving Time system is the worst – except for all the others.

[MNHighwayMan]

It's easy to sit there and say how much simpler year-round DST would be, but if you actually implemented it, you would be roasted alive in December and January by today's more paranoid safety-conscious parents.

Except I don't care about what parents think. If they can't reasonably either A) teach their children to be responsible and handle themselves, and/or B) help their children reasonably deal with the situation, then there's a problem with parenting and/or the school system. My entire point is, while there might be a problem, the antiquated DST solution isn't the answer. Later school start times are a far more reasonable and effective solution to the (IMO, scare-mongering) problem of kids walking to school "in the dark."

Never mind that DST wasn't exactly created with the children in mind...

[kalvado]

Actually I am laughing at that argument. Ever heard of sarcasm?

I sure have–sarcasm extraordinaire here–but if there's one thing that just doesn't convey over the Internet, it's sarcasm. At least not without marking it explicitly, which is self-defeating in purpose...

I tried to make it obvious. Spoiled brats and poor babies referring to same kids in same paragraph... But oh,well.

I 100 percent dislike DST. It's a concept past its time (pun unintended)–one that seems to only create unnecessary difficulty in the modern information era. Most people don't live and work by the solar clock anymore. The US needs to drop the idiocy and either stick with standard time, or permanently move forward an hour.

But.. But.. But... KIDS! GO! TO! SCHOOL! IN! THE! DARK!!!!

I feel like that's largely a strawman that no one actually believes except Fox News watchers and truly crazy people.

Unless you're not serious.

I remember the winter of 1973-'74, when we had winter DST. That actually was a big issue then. A lot of parents really were seriously upset.

It's easy to sit there and say how much simpler year-round DST would be, but if you actually implemented it, you would be roasted alive in December and January by today's more paranoid safety-conscious parents. And if you had year-round Standard Time, most people in July and August would wonder why we're wasting daylight on pre-waking hours rather than evening-activity hours.

Maybe tweak the dates if you want, but the current Daylight Saving Time system is the worst – except for all the others.

Problem is that the argument is quite regional. One hour difference across time zone means something intolerable for Boston is what Cleveland actually gets even with clock adjustment. Someone in Florida wouldn't understand the issue at all.
As for me, I grew up further north; and there were periods when school day was actually longer than solar day. So whatever they did with the clock, at least one trip would be in the dark, with possibility of kid travelling both ways with sun below horizon.  And you know what? Our entire class survived that!

[formulanone]

Actually I am laughing at that argument. Ever heard of sarcasm?

I sure have—sarcasm extraordinaire here—but if there's one thing that just doesn't convey over the Internet, it's sarcasm. At least not without marking it explicitly, which is self-defeating in purpose…

Actually people are much happier when their waking and sleeping times align to the solar clock, and small inexperienced people are quite a bit safer walking to school when it's light out.  I feel your comments are a strawman, because it's so easy to disprove them with a sunrise/sunset chart.

As someone who works third shift and doesn't give a shit about what time actual sunrise/sunset occurs, I can very much do without the arbitrary loss and gain of an hour twice a year.

Here's a tip: Sarcasm works once, but after the third go-round, it's indistinguishable from ignorance. (This is a forum where 80% of the members have a white-hot rage and froth over I-238.)

Where I live, it's nice to have the chance for the sun to melt away - or at least, visually spot - potential ice from the roads before driving off. If you live north of the Sun Belt, too bad for you...there's no effect. I also like the additional hour of sunlight after work, so I look forward to that benefit as well.

So yeah, this is one of those rare things where I'm a happy little robot to comply. I'm under no illusion that this is magically creating time or more hours in a day.

[KEVIN_224]

The local sunrise and sunset for New Britain, CT today, March 7th, is 6:16 AM and 5:48 PM. Total length of daylight is 11 hours 32 minutes. I'm guessing our sunset on Sunday will be around 6:53 PM or so. Nothing is stranger than the sun setting near 7 PM and several inches of snow are on the ground. I sincerely wish they'd put it back to the 2006 and earlier setup of early April to late October. Oh...and put Indianapolis on Central Time where they belong!

[davewiecking]

Florida legislature voted yesterday to go to DST year-round. Needs signature from the Governor, and approval from US Congress. According to http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article203781769.html, sunrise on winter solstice would be 8A and sunset 6:30P; writer of article apparently believes Florida is a point, not an area. Sponsoring Senator reportedly got idea after hearing his barber complain that his kids had trouble waking up the day after the time change (but apparently it's OK for them to walk to school in the dark).

[oscar]

According to http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article203781769.html, sunrise on winter solstice would be 8A and sunset 6:30P; writer of article apparently believes Florida is a point, not an area.

Also forgetting the Florida panhandle areas, like Pensacola, that are in a different time zone from Miami's.

[hotdogPi]

Florida legislature voted yesterday to go to DST year-round. Needs signature from the Governor, and approval from US Congress. According to http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article203781769.html, sunrise on winter solstice would be 8A and sunset 6:30P; writer of article apparently believes Florida is a point, not an area. Sponsoring Senator reportedly got idea after hearing his barber complain that his kids had trouble waking up the day after the time change (but apparently it's OK for them to walk to school in the dark).

How did they handle the panhandle (no pun intended)? Is the panhandle on EST, while the rest is on AST?

[jwolfer]

Florida legislature voted yesterday to go to DST year-round. Needs signature from the Governor, and approval from US Congress. According to http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article203781769.html, sunrise on winter solstice would be 8A and sunset 6:30P; writer of article apparently believes Florida is a point, not an area. Sponsoring Senator reportedly got idea after hearing his barber complain that his kids had trouble waking up the day after the time change (but apparently it's OK for them to walk to school in the dark).

How did they handle the panhandle (no pun intended)? Is the panhandle on EST, while the rest is on AST?

The original proposal was for the entire state to be in Eastern Time zone.. but the panhandle legislators want to stay on Central.

At one point in the past all of Florida and Georgia were Central Time



Z981

[hotdogPi]

Florida legislature voted yesterday to go to DST year-round. Needs signature from the Governor, and approval from US Congress. According to http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article203781769.html, sunrise on winter solstice would be 8A and sunset 6:30P; writer of article apparently believes Florida is a point, not an area. Sponsoring Senator reportedly got idea after hearing his barber complain that his kids had trouble waking up the day after the time change (but apparently it's OK for them to walk to school in the dark).

How did they handle the panhandle (no pun intended)? Is the panhandle on EST, while the rest is on AST?

The original proposal was for the entire state to be in Eastern Time zone.. but the panhandle legislators want to stay on Central.

At one point in the past all of Florida and Georgia were Central Time



Z981

It would be ridiculous for the Panhandle to switch to Atlantic Standard Time (which is what this proposal really is). That would create a two-hour difference between Alabama and Florida.

[jwolfer]

Florida legislature voted yesterday to go to DST year-round. Needs signature from the Governor, and approval from US Congress. According to http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article203781769.html, sunrise on winter solstice would be 8A and sunset 6:30P; writer of article apparently believes Florida is a point, not an area. Sponsoring Senator reportedly got idea after hearing his barber complain that his kids had trouble waking up the day after the time change (but apparently it's OK for them to walk to school in the dark).

How did they handle the panhandle (no pun intended)? Is the panhandle on EST, while the rest is on AST?

The original proposal was for the entire state to be in Eastern Time zone.. but the panhandle legislators want to stay on Central.

At one point in the past all of Florida and Georgia were Central Time



Z981

It would be ridiculous for the Panhandle to switch to Atlantic Standard Time (which is what this proposal really is). That would create a two-hour difference between Alabama and Florida.

I agree.. I like daylight savings time.. I like having daylight after work in the evening.. but I also understand not having it all year.

People adapt to whatever the time is... I see no need to change from current practice.

I don't like the idea of every state having different time.  My ex wife's dad lived in Indiana and trying to remember what time it was there to make calls etc was a PITA, not life ending.. but it's hard enough to remember time difference with California

Jacksonville CMSA is actually in Florida and Georgia so if this gets approved the same metro area will be different times part of the year. 

Z981

[abefroman329]

I don't like the idea of every state having different time.

It's not difficult when every state has a consistent approach to DST.  When I lived in Chicago and my parents lived in Atlanta, it was always an hour later when I called them.  It's the same for colleagues in Ohio or Delaware or New York.

And fuck the kids, I don't like leaving for work when it's still dark out.

[jwolfer]

I don't like the idea of every state having different time.

It's not difficult when every state has a consistent approach to DST.  When I lived in Chicago and my parents lived in Atlanta, it was always an hour later when I called them.  It's the same for colleagues in Ohio or Delaware or New York.

And fuck the kids, I don't like leaving for work when it's still dark out.

I understand different time zones.. let me clarify what I mean is state A observes daylight savings time but state B does not(where bother are in the same time zone)..  Imagine a handful of states not observing DST.. some others being on DST year round..

So you live in Chicago and your mama lives in Atlanta and your daddy lives in Miami, both eastern time but in the summer Atlanta being an hour earlier but Miami is the same time.

Z981

[jwolfer]

With the day being shorter in the winter I remember leaving for work in the dark and getting off in the dark when I lived in NJ.

So especially in northern latitudes winter is going to mean driving  to work or driving home in the dark for many if not most people

Z981

[kalvado]

With the day being shorter in the winter I remember leaving for work in the dark and getting off in the dark when I lived in NJ.

So especially in northern latitudes winter is going to mean driving  to work or driving home in the dark for many if not most people

Z981

Somewhat related image:

[jwolfer]

With the day being shorter in the winter I remember leaving for work in the dark and getting off in the dark when I lived in NJ.

So especially in northern latitudes winter is going to mean driving  to work or driving home in the dark for many if not most people

Z981

Somewhat related image:

I understand that.. I am the totally exhausted pigeon.. I just can't seem to get to bed before midnight.

Z981

[vdeane]

I'm questioning some of the claims in that Florida article.  Shouldn't it be the spring forward, not the fall back, where it would be harder to get kids up?  Fall back is when you gain an hour.  And why do shops have to close at sunset?  Why couldn't a couple eat out?  None of this makes any kind of sense.

If anything, FL should remain on EST year round, not EDT, which is the equivalent of AST.  Miami is as far west as Pittsburgh, and Jacksonville as far west as Cleveland, and yet they would be an hour ahead of Boston, which is about 8 degrees of longitude east of Miami, in the winter.  If the time zone lines were to be redrawn and standard time observed year round, I would redraw them like this:

ET (UTC-4): Anything north and east of a line that would start in northern Quebec, pass west of Ottawa and Kingston, cut between Syracuse and Rochester, then pass west of Williamsport and between I-81 and I-99, passing just west of Hagerstown, clipping the WV panhandle counties that are part of the DC exurbs, then bending east just south of the I-81/I-64 junction, passing diagonally southeast down to the NC border just west of I-95, then following the NC/VA border to the coast.

CT (UTC-5):  Basically anything not mentioned above that is east of the Mississippi, with the western line bending west around the major metropolitan areas along the river (Twin Cities, St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans).

MT (UTC-6): Anything between the Mississippi and the Continental Divide, with some adjustments for metro areas

PT (UTC-7): Anything west of the Continental Divide to the Pacific.

If standard time was year round, it would be -5, -6, -7, and -8. Your numbers (-4, -5, -6, and -7) are for daylight savings time.

I renamed the time zones.  ET is AST equivalent, CT is EST equivalent, MT is CST equivalent, and PT is MST equivalent.  There is NO way I would keep the northeast on EST year round; a 4:15 AM sunrise in my area on 6/21 is ridiculous, while a 5:20 sunset in December is certainly more desireable.

I would not want to be on AST.  I'm prefectly fine with a 4:20 sunset, but it's already too dark in the morning as it is.  Year round EST might work though.  Maybe the early sunrise would actually wake me up enough to get out of bed for work on time.  As it is now, I wake up extremely groggy (and am usually wide awake when I go to bed).  It's also easier to scrape the car off in winter if the sun has had a chance to soften the ice first, which doesn't happen on DST.

Honestly, though, I'd rather just return to the old rules that had us on DST from April-October.

[webny99]

The local sunrise and sunset for New Britain, CT today, March 7th, is 6:16 AM and 5:48 PM.

In Rochester, it's 6:36 AM and 6:07 PM. I wouldn't like even that 20 minute offset. I can't stand the few weeks in November when solar noon is before actual noon. Anywhere between 12 and 1:30 is good.

Nothing is stranger than the sun setting near 7 PM and several inches of snow are on the ground.

A few hundred miles to your northwest, there is absolutely nothing strange about that. In fact, it's quite common. We'd be fooling ourselves if we though winter's wrath was over by March 10th 

[SP Cook]

Moving most of Florida to AST is really dumb.  For one thing sunrise would be almost 8 in winter.  The other thing is that it puts the state out-of-sync with the flow of the electronic entertainment industry.  Unless (like Canada does, but the population pattern is way different) want to spool up a AST TV feed, primetime would be 9-12, the NFL would start at 2, college at 1, and night baseball at 8.  Nationally televised sports events like NBA or MLB playoffs, generally held for an 8 ET start to accomodate the west coast (most people can at least listen to the start on the radio as they drive home) would start at 9, and thus end well after midnight. 

No way the sports leagues and TV networks allow such a thing in the third largest state. 

[abefroman329]

I don't like the idea of every state having different time.

It's not difficult when every state has a consistent approach to DST.  When I lived in Chicago and my parents lived in Atlanta, it was always an hour later when I called them.  It's the same for colleagues in Ohio or Delaware or New York.

And fuck the kids, I don't like leaving for work when it's still dark out.

I understand different time zones.. let me clarify what I mean is state A observes daylight savings time but state B does not(where bother are in the same time zone)..  Imagine a handful of states not observing DST.. some others being on DST year round..

So you live in Chicago and your mama lives in Atlanta and your daddy lives in Miami, both eastern time but in the summer Atlanta being an hour earlier but Miami is the same time.

Z981

I get what you're saying now.  We have an office in Phoenix and I have to go to Google to figure out what time it is there.  Same for my wife's family who live in England, where they go on and off DST at different times than we do.

[US 89]

If anything, FL should remain on EST year round, not EDT, which is the equivalent of AST.  Miami is as far west as Pittsburgh, and Jacksonville as far west as Cleveland, and yet they would be an hour ahead of Boston, which is about 8 degrees of longitude east of Miami, in the winter.  If the time zone lines were to be redrawn and standard time observed year round, I would redraw them like this:

ET (UTC-4): Anything north and east of a line that would start in northern Quebec, pass west of Ottawa and Kingston, cut between Syracuse and Rochester, then pass west of Williamsport and between I-81 and I-99, passing just west of Hagerstown, clipping the WV panhandle counties that are part of the DC exurbs, then bending east just south of the I-81/I-64 junction, passing diagonally southeast down to the NC border just west of I-95, then following the NC/VA border to the coast.

CT (UTC-5):  Basically anything not mentioned above that is east of the Mississippi, with the western line bending west around the major metropolitan areas along the river (Twin Cities, St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans).

MT (UTC-6): Anything between the Mississippi and the Continental Divide, with some adjustments for metro areas

PT (UTC-7): Anything west of the Continental Divide to the Pacific.

If standard time was year round, it would be -5, -6, -7, and -8. Your numbers (-4, -5, -6, and -7) are for daylight savings time.

Speaking for Utah, there’s no way I would want to be on Pacific standard time year round. If that were the case, we’d have sunset before 4 pm in winter. EDIT: after thinking about this more and looking on timeanddate.com, the sun would rise at 3:55 AM in June, and only set at 7 pm.

I could deal with MST year round, but I like MDT just fine. I just wish DST started late enough in spring that it was still light at 7:30 in the morning.

[NWI_Irish96]

I 100 percent dislike DST. It's a concept past its time (pun unintended)–one that seems to only create unnecessary difficulty in the modern information era. Most people don't live and work by the solar clock anymore. The US needs to drop the idiocy and either stick with standard time, or permanently move forward an hour.

But.. But.. But... KIDS! GO! TO! SCHOOL! IN! THE! DARK!!!!

I feel like that's largely a strawman that no one actually believes except Fox News watchers and truly crazy people.

Unless you're not serious.

Actually my feeling is that high school starting time is deliberately set up so that kids get used to waking up in a dark all the year round...

School bus and parental pick-up schedules, that's why.

Yep, and damn those spoiled brats - they deserve 5 AM alarm clock! But god forbids poor babies walk 50 feet in the dark...
It is really one way or the other, you cannot have that cake and eat it too.

Do you actually have any children, or are you just looking for attention?

You're the only one dragging out the "think of the children" chestnut, and I really don't care one way or another about time changes.

I have kids and I really didn't like them getting on the bus in the dark in the morning when I lived in the EST/EDT part of Indiana.  Some school districts moved start times back past 9am to avoid that but then that created morning child care issues if both parents work.

[Scott5114]

Keep the time the same, and shift the children one hour into the future in the springtime.