I case you didn’t know it yet (and by now you do, seeing as you’ve been an hour late to all your appointments for the past 24 hours), this past Sunday morning marked the beginning of yet another season of Daylight Savings Time.  You now have until November 5^th, 2017 to fool yourself into believing you have an “extra” hour of daylight every day from now until then.

Daylight Savings Time (DST) is a practice that was suggested as early as 1784 by Benjamin Franklin[1].  The rationale was that it allowed an “extra” hour of daylight in the summer months (when the Northern Hemisphere’s length of day is notably longer due to the earth’s axis tilt towards the sun), and that this “saved energy” by allowing people to take advantage of more natural light in their daily life and routine.  That may have been true when the words “lights” and “industry” meant “candles” and “blacksmith forge”, but in today’s world, the real savings benefits of this stated advantage are largely disputed.

DST was started in earnest in the U.S. by Woodrow Wilson in 1918, but was never standardized over the entire country until 1966.  Even now, some areas of the country don’t follow it.  Arizona, for example, doesn’t convert to DST (except for the Navajo Indian reservation – go figure).  Hawaii also doesn’t follow DST[2].

Congress also can’t seem to make up its mind, either.  It messes with the dates all the time, the last being in 2007 when they mandated that DST will start “the second Sunday in March and run until the first Sunday in November”.  They even tried to run DST year-round during the mid-1970’s oil crisis, when the U.S. stayed on DST full time from January 6^th 1974 until April 27^th, 1975.  Why they stopped it as the days were beginning to lengthen that year is one of those seemingly simple questions that Congress makes infinitely complex, although the big knock against it from the public was that kids were getting up and going to school “in the dark” during the winter months.  I guess the real lesson learned there was “don’t mess with angry mothers.”

So, does it really give us anything?  Well, advocates will say it “lengthens the evening”, allowing more time for outdoor activities.  They will also cite such advantages as reduced traffic accidents and crime.  Honestly, about the only possible accidents it impacts in my house is the chance that I’ll fall off of the step-stool when trying to change the wall clock.  In reality, the further south one travels in the U.S. (and the closer one gets to the equator), the less the benefit is noticed (as the length of day is more consistent year-round).  I guess we could institute a time change based upon latitude, but I’m sure Congress would never be able to figure out how to do it.  Could you even imagine that?  You’d need a pocket grid to figure out the time for just about everything.

“Let’s see it’s 7:09 p.m. in Boston,” (traces finger down and across large grid table), “so that means it’s also 5:43 p.m. in Las Vegas, so I guess it will be safe to call Uncle Henry.”

Sheesh.

No thank you.

As far as the other stated advantages, honestly, isn’t just a head game we play with ourselves?  It’s a giant lie that we all go along with.  Truthfully, we could all just get up an hour earlier and gain the same benefits.  It’s almost like flying from New York to California and then raving about how it doesn’t get dark on the West Coast until 11:00 p.m., when in reality all that happened was that you didn’t reset your wristwatch to account for the Pacific Time Zone.

I guess what I’m advocating is let’s all pick a time and stick with it.  I don’t need to switch back and forth twice a year.

Besides, that rooster up the street is still crowing at daylight anyway, no matter what the clock says.

 

 

[1] All stats and background taken from Wikipedia contributors, “Daylight saving time,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Daylight_saving_time&oldid=769933559 (accessed March 12, 2017).

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “Daylight saving time in the United States,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Daylight_saving_time_in_the_United_States&oldid=769923480 (accessed March 12, 2017).