San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
It’s daylight saving time. Have another cup of coffee
If ever a piece of legislation had a title that can’t be beat, you’d think it would be this one: “Sunshine Protection Act.”
That seemed to be the thinking in the U.S. Senate last year when it voted by unanimous consent for the bill to make daylight saving time permanent.
Well, a lot of people like the sunshine just fine without it.
The killer title apparently didn’t make much of an impact in the House of Representatives, where the bill stalled.
Not surprisingly, the measure was reintroduced in the Senate last week.
Like clockwork, a flood of news stories about why daylight saving time exists and whether it’s good or bad for you appeared in the days before this morning’s time change — as happens every year.
California’s position, if you can call it that, is rather confused. A state legislator planned to introduce a bill to have the state remain in standard time year-round, then it was changed in favor of full-time daylight savings after the Senate acted.
In 2018, California voters backed what might simply be called “permanent time,” though it was promoted as a daylight saving measure. But Proposition 7 allows the Legislature to shift to all-year standard time or, if Congress approves, full-time daylight saving.
Daylight saving and standard times have their fans, but a lot of people get fed up with the time changes and just want one or the other.
Not everybody is in the just-choose-one camp, however. In my very non-scientific survey, there’s a minority out there that embraces the change.
Yes, the gradual cycle of winter-to-spring-to-summer-to-fall has cadence and charm. But springing forward to daylight saving on the second Sunday in March is a can’t-miss marker that warmer days are ahead, just like falling back to standard time on the first Sunday in November is a clear signal
sweater weather is upon us.
An hour difference each way may not seem like much, but even for those who like the time change, there’s no denying it creates disruption to varying degrees — and it has triggered argument for the better part of a century.
While partisans in the pro-con dispute may not agree, it seems that the debate has become a perpetual draw.
Doctors who specialize in sleep disorders agree that standard time is better for us.
“Although I love sunshine, getting rid of daylight saving time, instead of making it permanent, would be a healthier option,” says Dr. Victoria Sharma, medical director of the Sharp Grossmont Hospital Sleep Disorders Center.
The change in time disrupts our circadian rhythm, or body clock. This is particularly significant for teens.
“Teenagers have a naturally later sleep cycle than children and adults, which means they should wake up later in the day to stay in sync with their body clocks,” according to the Sharp Health website.
The sleep loss may simply mean more tiredness, but it can have larger health impacts for some people.
According to the website Time and Date, studies have linked the lack of sleep at the start of daylight savings to an increase in car accidents, workplace injuries, suicide and miscarriages.
Research suggests the risk of heart attack is reduced when clocks fall back, but increases when springing forward.
Naturally, not all studies agree on the positive or negative effects of more daylight later in the day and less in the morning.
Some research links the return of standard time and early-evening darkness to depression.
The Time and Date website cites studies that found daylight saving time contributed to improved road safety by reducing pedestrian fatalities by 13 percent during dawn and dusk hours.
Another study found a 7 percent decrease in robberies following the spring shift.
Currently, Hawaii and Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Nation) are the only states that remain in standard time all year, as do U.S. territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
In Indiana, a peculiar situation created difficulty figuring out what time it was in some regions until daylight saving time was adopted statewide in 2006. Until then, some counties chose to observe daylight saving time, while others didn’t. Layer that on top of the fact that the state is in two time zones — Eastern and Central — and, well, you get the idea.
A study in Indiana actually found increased energy use after daylight saving time was enforced across the state, which is intriguing since daylight saving time was largely created to save energy. A 2005 study by the U.S. Department of Energy found extending daylight saving time would result in a very small reduction in energy consumption.
But that’s in these modern days. Daylight saving time was implemented in Europe and the United States to save fuel and power during World War I. “War time” was reinstituted during World War II and made seasonally permanent in the U.S. in 1966.
Year-round daylight saving time was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in January 1974 during the energy crisis. But public displeasure with the rule — particularly the dark mornings that were blamed for traffic fatalities — was such that Congress voted to end it the following October.
Like it or hate it, the consensus complaint is about having to change time. Consistency is said to be the hobgoblin of little minds, but don’t tell that to the cranky people who don’t want their lives inconvenienced, or worse, every March and November.
For a long time, farmers took the fall for this disruption. There was a belief that daylight saving time was designed, at least in part, to help them. Au contraire.
“Not only is that not true, it is 100 percent not true. It is as far from true as one could get,” David Prerau, author of “Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time,” told Nebraska Public Media.
“People think it was put in place for farmers, but the leading group against daylight saving time has always been farmers and agricultural people.”
The timing of farm work doesn’t change with the clocks, and the change added a degree of difficulty in getting crops to market.
Anyway, daylight saving time is here now — and may be to stay.
But enough chitchat. Time to get on with the day. It’s a short one.
Tweet of the Week
Goes to Mark Z. Barabak (@markzbarabak), political columnist at the Los Angeles Times.
“For every six Californians who left for Florida last year, five moved to California from Florida.”