Make Year-Long Standard Time the Nationwide Standard Again

I’m one of the many Americans who hate being forced to time-shift twice a year. After only four months on standard time, daylight saving time returns with a vengeance on Sunday, March 8, when 2 a.m. abruptly becomes 3 a.m.

Only residents of Arizona (with the exception of those living on the land reserved for the Navajo Nation, which is compelled to follow Washington’s timekeeping edicts), Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, and other outlying U.S. territories will not have their body clocks jolted by time suddenly “springing forward” one hour.

Public opinion has been slowly turning against the twice-yearly ritual of moving the clock hands forward and backward. The main question nowadays is, what is to be done, policy-wise?

Most people don’t realize that standard time, as its name implies, was the year-round custom in the United States (and most of the world) until 1918, when—during World War I—the practice of springing forward was introduced as an alleged energy-saving measure. That ended shortly after the war but was temporarily reinstated during World War II and then codified as an annual ritual when Congress passed the Uniform Time Act of 1966.

The false belief in DST-related energy savings has led some state and federal lawmakers to propose making DST permanent. That would be a serious blunder, experience shows.

More than five decades ago, on January 6, 1974, Washington launched what was meant to be a two-year-long experiment with permanent DST. While the change initially was favored by 79 percent of the public, it quickly lost favor after predawn accidents killed or injured several schoolchildren.

Many started calling it daylight disaster time, permanent DST’s popularity tumbled to 42%, and the experiment ended for good in October 1974, after just 10 months.

Fans of permanent DST are relentless, however. The latest effort is called the Sunshine Protection Act, introduced last year by Florida Republicans Vern Buchanan in the House and Rick Scott in the Senate. Political memories are short: It was Florida schoolchildren who became DST’s casualties in 1974.

The reason clock settings are a hotly debated political issue is that the Uniform Time Act allows states and U.S. territories to lock in standard time for 12 months, but it doesn’t allow them to adopt DST permanently. For that to happen, the 1966 statute would have to be amended or repealed.

A “compromise” introduced by another Florida politician would “split the baby” by setting clocks ahead by 30 minutes for good. Although plausibly less troublesome, “half-DST” would put U.S. time zones out of sync with the rest of the world. And it would still misalign our human body clocks with morning sunlight, thereby disrupting circadian rhythms and causing the spikes in heart attacks, strokes, depression and other health problems observed in the days following the one-hour spring and fall time shifts.

Changing clocks twice every year is disruptive and costly. On-the-job productivity sinks until employees adjust physiologically to springing forward and falling back. Retailers are major supporters of DST because they think that sales rise when more people can shop after work. The owners of golf courses, tennis courts and other outdoor sports venues likewise plausibly benefit from DST.

DST’s supporters may be confusing seasonal changes in day lengths with clock changes. Shifting between daylight saving time and standard time has no effect on the rising and setting of the sun at any location on the planet. They are determined by latitude (distance from the equator) and changes in the Earth’s polar tilt as it revolves around the sun.

During a radio interview several years ago, I was amused by the host’s remark that he likes DST because losing an hour of sleep in March signals that winter is ending and spring is on the way. Guess what? Except at the equator, days lengthen and shorten over the calendar year, no matter where the hands of clocks are pointing.

Stop the stupid ritual. Standard time now runs for just four months (early November through early March). It’s time to make it the year-round nationwide standard again.