I was in grade school at the time, and yup, I remember it still being dark (and cold, it being winter) when my sister and I went to catch the school bus in the morning.
In early January here in Chicago, on standard time, the sun rises at about 7:15am; make that 8:15am under DST. In, say, Minneapolis, make that about 8:50am on DST.
So any reason why people would be less pissed off this time around then back in the 70s? Just curious if enough has changed that we don’t experience the same blowback when people realize waking up to pitch black darkness and sending their kids to school isn’t fun.
I see no reason to believe that dark mornings would be any less unpopular now; if anything, many American parents are more protective of their kids now than their counterparts were 50 years ago.
I suspect that at least some people who are in favor of year-round DST are thinking mostly about the later daylight in the evenings in the winter months, and haven’t really internalized just how dark mornings would be, at least in the northern half of the country.
More protective and much less likely to be sending them off on their own to school…I say as a gut feeling without evidence.
We have better infrastructure now than we had in the 70s. Better headlights and safety features on cars, better street lamps and roads, more security, and more safety features are embedded into our daily lives. Plus, much of our time is spent with our noses stuck in front of a glowing screen.
Seems like in Chicago we’re waking up in the dark regardless and its a matter of how much has the sky lightened by the time the kids actually get to school.
I’d be fine with all year Standard Time. I just want the switching to stop.
Split the difference; offset by 30 minutes. Then everyone is equally unhappy.
I’m in the stop switching camp. Pick one and stick with it.
When we wake up, sure, from about mid-November to mid-February. If we go on DST all year-round, though, it’s gonna be even worse. I remember waiting for the city bus at 6:45 a.m. to get to school in the winter and it was miserable. I wouldn’t want another couple months tacked on to that. At least with your proposal, the darkness stays the same, and we don’t have 8:15 a.m. sunrises. But then we piss off the DST people who want later hours in the summer. (Though, I admit, I’m one of those people and perhaps not thinking of the kids enough.)
Hooray!
Makes sense to me. Of course, I don’t really have strong feelings on what gets selected, just pick something and STICK WITH IT!!!
I concur.
DST used to save massive energy, but now that is debatable.
Schools can change their hours.
They can, and I certainly don’t oppose them starting later, but I suspect you’ll get a lot of pissed off parents if they have to get their kids to school at 9 or whatnot. Depends on work hours, though; I don’t know how rigid schedules are these days, but most people I know who have office jobs usually should be in the office by around 9 a.m., if not 8:30 or even 8.
That’s why most of Arizona sticks to MST. Being on the western side of the zone as it is, in June the sun is just setting at 7:30. Since we don’t go out in the summer while the sun is still up the last thing we want is an extra hour of sun then.
Be glad you don’t live in China. The whole country is on Beijing time and like the US, is four time zones wide. Live in western China and while the sun may set at 7pm in Beijing, yours won’t until 10pm. I suspect business, schools and such adjust their open and close times to be a little closer to what the sun is doing.
Similarly for India, although it’s only about two time zones wide (nearly 30 degrees of longitude). They split the difference by offsetting half an hour.
I can think of two guys not too happy with DST:
https://images.app.goo.gl/WPcH1DzJBxNimCBz8
Another, more gradual and incremental approach: During the winter, move the clocks forward by 3 minutes a day. (We can make that 21 minutes one day each week, if that’s more convenient.) At the summer solstice, reverse this and set the clocks back 3 minutes a day (or 21 minutes each week).
Or how about Congress passing a law giving us 25 hours each day, with the stipulation that the additional hour must be a daylight hour. I could get behind that.
This suggests another thing that should be obvious: We should have time zones by latitude rather than longitude. Thus, a Southern time zone, a Mid-Latitude time zone, and a Northern time zone. Or however many times zones it takes to divide up the United States (and indeed all of North America) to get the optimal day/night divisions.
I’m sure the Earth will be happy to rotate slower in summer to make a longer day.
Including people who don’t live in the US. Especially Canadians (except Newfielanders, who are already half an hour off) and Mexicans who live near the border.
If both Houses of Congress pass it and the Prez signs it, it will be so! Hain’t you learned nothing in your Civics classes?
(P.S. The days will have 25 hours all year long, with the extra hour during the daylight, not just in the summer. Winter is when we need it most, of course.)
I’m sure King Canute would be happy to serve as technical expert.