Daylight Savings Time (2022): Once And For All!!!

[thenetwork]

There's a very good chance there could be just ONE MORE set of time changes:

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/03/time-for-a-change-us-senate-agrees-to-make-daylight-savings-permanent.html

[Max Rockatansky]

In before lock, I'm highly in favor of this measure given the extra hour before sundown would make my winters hugely more palatable.

[ilpt4u]

I'm really in favor of Year Round "Half DST/Half ST"  as in, Central Time offsets -5.5 year-round from GMT, as opposed to -6 during CST and -5 during CDT/now

Eastern Time would be -4.5 year-round; Mountain Time -6.5 year-round. Pacific Time -7.5 year-round

It'll never happen

Year-round DST won't be a good solution, either. Working outside sucks when both the start and end of the day are in darkness. At least with Winter Standard Time, you can get your stuff down in the morning hours with daylight

[NWI_Irish96]

I think this might prompt the bulk of Indiana that's on Eastern time to switch to Central.

In South Bend for example, Eastern time + daylight saving = 9:08 sunrise on December 21 and that's just messed up. 8:08 is already late.

[7/8]

I feel like I'm in the minority in liking DST. Keeps the morning's from being too dark in the winter, and also reduces a wasted hour of early morning sun in the summer. The time changes don't bother me since I suck at sleeping anyway and almost all my clocks update automatically. My only complaint is I would prefer a few more weeks of Standard Time since I feel the sunrises are too late in late March and late October on DST.

[KeithE4Phx]

What of Arizona and Hawaii?  Mountain Daylight Time is observed in the Navajo Nation but nowhere else in Arizona.  Hawaii doesn't observe DST at all, and doesn't need to. 

The sun setting at 9:30 PM in the Phoenix, Tucson, and Yuma areas, where it's 110 degrees during the day, is an absolute non-starter.  It was tried and it failed in 1967.  Keep our time zone the same, and just call it Pacific Daylight Time.

[oscar]

Have the governments of Canada and Mexico been consulted, or weighed in, on this proposal? They would need to be consulted, as part of keeping North America mostly in synch without oddball time changes at borders. That could slow down the process.

As suggested above, some jurisdictions might want to change time zones in response to "permanent DST".

[1995hoo]

I do not understand why anyone thinks this is a good idea. As with everything else in life, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Here in the DC area, sunrise around Christmastime is at around 7:25 and sunset is around 16:46. You get up in the dark and you commute home (or get off work) in the dark. If we were on DST at that time of year, sunrise would be at 8:25 and sunset at 17:46. So it would be even darker when you get up and it would still be dark when you commute home (or get off work), meaning there would be no benefit whatsoever to DST. The effect would be aggravated further north, of course, due to the days being shorter, and it would also be aggravated in the western portions of time zones due to the later sunrises there (South Bend would see sunrises later than 9:00 in December, for example).

Permanent standard time would be less objectionable on the whole except that sunrise in the DC area around the first day of summer would be at 4:43 if we were on standard time. On the whole, I think I'd regard that as less problematic than 8:25 sunrises during the winter because things like blackout curtains, which are common in Alaska, can be very effective (as I found in Alaska!).

Really, I find all the whining to be a generally silly fad that crops up twice a year and then disappears for a few months. Changing the clocks is not a big problem at all and I haven't heard anyone come up with a better solution on the whole for the issue of the solar day not corresponding to what our society wants it to be. Sure, one solution might be for society to adjust our schedules for different times of the year, but there is almost no chance of that ever happening.

Ideally, the idea would be to adjust societal expectations and scheduling based on sunlight rather than trying to adjust the clocks based on societal expectations. But that'll never happen. In theory, I can set my own hours. Suppose we had permanent standard time with 4:40 sunrises and 19:37 sunsets in June. If I wanted to get up at 5:00, start work at 6:00, and sign off at 15:30, in theory I could do that–but the problem would come if my boss didn't want to change his schedule in that way. If he continued to sign on at 8:00 and sign off at 17:30, what are the chances I'd be able to sign off at 15:30? About zero. He'd always have something else to be done in the afternoon and I'd just wind up making more work for myself.

(Ms1995hoo just had a very negative reaction to the idea of getting up earlier and going to bed earlier. But it seems to me if sunrise and sunset were an hour earlier, the whole point would be to adjust our schedules and societal expectations. Instead, our current system manipulates time to fit what society wants the clock to be.)

And I don't work retail or similar. The chances of retail adjusting business hours for different times of the year are nonexistent.

[SSOWorld]

It all depends on what side of the time zone you're in and how skewed it is with respect to solar noon (which most US and Canadian Time zones are). 

See Alaska.

[Scott5114]

I think we should shift the clocks by 12 hours twice a year. Keep everyone on their toes.

[NWI_Irish96]

Really, I find all the whining to be a generally silly fad that crops up twice a year and then disappears for a few months. Changing the clocks is not a big problem at all and I haven't heard anyone come up with a better solution on the whole for the issue of the solar day not corresponding to what our society wants it to be.

There are documented increases in strokes and heart attacks the first week after time changes. Personally, it takes me a week to get used to waking up at what is essentially an hour earlier. Fortunately for us, our dog is not like others in that it doesn't mind getting fed an hour later. Many dogs have a real hard time adjusting.

[LilianaUwU]

I think we should shift the clocks by 12 hours twice a year. Keep everyone on their toes.

And do it at different times every year with little to no warning.

[Max Rockatansky]

Really, I find all the whining to be a generally silly fad that crops up twice a year and then disappears for a few months. Changing the clocks is not a big problem at all and I haven't heard anyone come up with a better solution on the whole for the issue of the solar day not corresponding to what our society wants it to be.

There are documented increases in strokes and heart attacks the first week after time changes. Personally, it takes me a week to get used to waking up at what is essentially an hour earlier. Fortunately for us, our dog is not like others in that it doesn't mind getting fed an hour later. Many dogs have a real hard time adjusting.

Every year the base I work at expects me to put our safety training related to the hazards of the DST transition.  I don't dispute the statistics they cite but the notion that I'm expected to helicopter parent grown adults outside of my four walls is silly. 

[Scott5114]

I think we should shift the clocks by 12 hours twice a year. Keep everyone on their toes.

And do it at different times every year with little to no warning.

All right, everyone, BEDTIME. NOW.

[jeffandnicole]

I think we should shift the clocks by 12 hours twice a year. Keep everyone on their toes.

And do it at different times every year with little to no warning.

All right, everyone, BEDTIME. NOW.

(Holds flashlight under bedsheets, reads Archie comic book)

[1995hoo]

My brother sent a message observing that permanent DST is almost as idiotic as the universal DH.

[Scott5114]

My brother sent a message observing that permanent DST is almost as idiotic as the universal DH.

Is there a way we could combine the two somehow?

[bm7]

My only problem with this is that they're changing it permanently to daylight savings time, instead of standard time.

[kphoger]

What of Arizona and Hawaii?  Mountain Daylight Time is observed in the Navajo Nation but nowhere else in Arizona.  Hawaii doesn't observe DST at all, and doesn't need to. 

Changing when DST is doesn't affect who observes it and who doesn't.  DST was already extended back in 2007, don't forget.  This would be just like that, except there would be zero days in between the end and start dates.

Have the governments of Canada and Mexico been consulted, or weighed in, on this proposal? They would need to be consulted, as part of keeping North America mostly in synch without oddball time changes at borders. That could slow down the process.

Were they consulted prior to the extension in 2007?

Mexico and the USA have different DST schedules to this day.  I have an upcoming trip planned to Mexico, and the entire trip will be within the central time zone, yet my destination will nevertheless be one hour behind local time here in Wichita;  this is because the USA has already switched to DST but Mexico will not have switched yet.  In fact, back in 2010, I was in Mexico during the US time change;  we did not change our clocks at the border on the way down, but we changed them at the border on the way back.

Between 2007 and 2010, sister cities along the US-Mexican border had different DST schedules.  Starting in 2010, the border zone in Mexico uses the same DST schedule as the USA, while the rest of Mexico is still on the old schedule.  A proposed bill to adopt the US schedule nationwide failed to pass in the Mexican congress a few years ago.

[hotdogPi]

Have the governments of Canada and Mexico been consulted, or weighed in, on this proposal? They would need to be consulted, as part of keeping North America mostly in synch without oddball time changes at borders. That could slow down the process.

Were they consulted prior to the extension in 2007?

Canada is in line with the United States regarding start and end dates.

[kphoger]

Have the governments of Canada and Mexico been consulted, or weighed in, on this proposal? They would need to be consulted, as part of keeping North America mostly in synch without oddball time changes at borders. That could slow down the process.

Were they consulted prior to the extension in 2007?

Canada is in line with the United States regarding start and end dates.

But not all provinces and territories adopted the current schedule at the same time:

2005 – NB, PEI, PQ, ON
2006 – NS, AB, BC, NWT, YT (since rescinded)
2007 – NL, NU
Never – SK

That doesn't sound like a coordinated effort to me at all.

[ZLoth]

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/623/all-info

[vdeane]

I for one think the Bloodhound Gang got it right when they said "you are inclined to make me rise an hour early just like Daylight Savings Time".  To that end, I'm not looking forward to being forced to become even more of a morning lark against my will (my natural inclination is to be a night owl, but unlike many owls apparently, I work a normal "9-5" office job).  Or to having to wait 10 minutes for the car to warm up and defrost the ice in winter.  Or to no longer being able to see the Christmas lights in my neighborhood (as sunset will now be at least half an hour after I get home every single day of the year).

In any case, we tried this already in the 1970s.  It was quickly abandoned.  Is there any reason to believe things are different now?

[ozarkman417]

My only problem with this is that they're changing it permanently to daylight savings time, instead of standard time.

Exactly. In the event this bill passes as is, it would leave Arizona (except the Navajo nation) and Hawaii an hour behind everyone else for the whole year. The most likely outcome of this is that these two states would spring forward one last time (after not doing so for decades) to be in sync with the rest of their timezone.

[webny99]

I think this might prompt the bulk of Indiana that's on Eastern time to switch to Central.

In South Bend for example, Eastern time + daylight saving = 9:08 sunrise on December 21 and that's just messed up. 8:08 is already late.

Yeah, a few years ago I was in the Detroit area right after the the March spring forward, and it was still pretty much dark at 8 AM. I thought it was bad here, that was borderline absurd.