As most know Daylight Savings ends a few hours from now (November 6 at 2a).
My question is, congress has seemed to consider ending it for a while now. It seems universally popular to end. So, why doesn’t it end? Is there some political bloc that really wants it one way or another?
I think it’s more that people don’t really care about it ~361 days out of the year. It’s hard to build a movement for something that people will forget happened by Tuesday.
It’s a meh issue for me. I nominally prefer to shift the time slightly to maximize usable daylight hours, but I also don’t really care what happens.
It seems there is actual harm:
When daylight saving time ends again in the spring, we’ll lose an hour. That may not sound like much, but studies have linked it to increased traffic accidents, higher rates of stroke, and a bump in heart attacks. And although many people take the extra hour this weekend to indulge in waking activities, sleep experts say using that time for sleep could make a significant difference in your health. ~SOURCE
If you read that article closely, you’ll see that some in Congress want to end Daylight Saving Time, while others want to institute it year-round; there’s a similar split of opinion among Americans. What it seems like has general popular support is to end the practice of switching back and forth twice a year – but where I don’t think there’s a strong consensus is which way to leave the clocks year-round.
Minor nitpick, it’s Daylight Saving Time. Not the plural. Just to correct the title.
Okay, back to the fact. As many things, I suspect it’s inertia, the majority wants it gone, but no one will commit to which direction to fix it. If you don’t make a choice, and let the status quo continue, you’ll probably generate less wrath and more ‘useless as usual’ apathy.
Daylight Saving Time was made “permanent” in the mid-70s. Just like now, polling showed broad support for the policy at first. But as it was implemented, polling reversed and majorities opposed it. Most cited the dark mornings for the opposition (a completely foreseeable consequence of this change). The policy was reversed after two years.
The lesson is that people are idiots and cannot be trusted to know what they really want, and they will not hesitate to blame policymakers if it doesn’t pan out exactly how they imagined it would. Congress is well aware of this, hence the reluctance to act.
From what I’ve been consistently hearing over the years from many different sources, it does seem like the consensus is to keep Daylight Saving Time year-round. Which I vehemently disagree with. I do agree that switching back and forth is stupid, but Standard Time is called “standard” for a reason, that being that it matches the clock and the calendar. “Daylight Saving Time” should be called “Fucked-up artificial time system so we have more daylight hours in summer evenings”. Here’s my suggestion which I’ve spent years thinking up which achieves the same thing without time changes, and the logic is as brilliant as it is compelling: you want an extra hour of daylight for your picnic or barbecue or garden party? Fucking get up an hour earlier. 
The switch to DST disrupts everyone’s schedule but, believe it or not, it doesn’t make the actual day any longer!
I was a kid at that time, and I remember a lot of uproar over “kids are having to wait for school buses in the dark!”
And, specifically, this was what happened in the winter months, and particularly in the northern half of the U.S.: for example, here in Chicago, if we were to go to full-time DST, sunrise in the first half of January will be around 8:15 a.m. In Minneapolis, it’d be around 8:50 a.m., in Seattle, it’d be just before 9 a.m.
I am one of those who would prefer Daylight Saving Time year round but I am not really fussed about it one way or another.
My preference is to pick one and stick with it instead of changing. I may prefer one choice over the other but it will not affect how I vote.
Arizona doesn’t do Daylight Saving. Maybe go with that if there is no reason not to.
YMMV
My impression is that some people want it to end (i.e. permanent Standard Time), some people want to go to permanent DST, some people want to keep it the way it is now, and some people want some other alternative.
And, as @flurb noted, what people think they want doesn’t necessarily coincide with what people would actually be happy with once they got it.
The issue has been discussed before:
One thing that was pointed out in those threads is that people have different experiences depending on what latitude they live at.
Personally, I don’t understand why people get so worked up about it. Unless you’re nearly 100 years old or live in Arizona, it’s something you’ve had to do twice a year for your entire life, and I don’t envy either of those classes of people.
As I noted above there is actual harm from the time change.
I just changed all the clocks except my watch and the clocks in the car. It took less than 10 minutes. Big whoop.
I had to wait for school buses in the dark in the fall, and that was in Florida. This century. The sun didn’t come up until as late as 7:30am, school started at like 7:15, and my bus route was a good half hour to an hour.
I mean, even now daybreak comes during my morning drive.
I simply assume it’s normal for kids up north to wait in the dark.
~Max
I only need to change my microwave and oven clock. Takes a minute or two. No big whoop but that’s not really the issue (as noted above).
Apart from health issues do you want more daylight when you wake or later in the evening?
Anyone who says that gaining or losing one hour of sleep in one night twice a year causes them harm or health problems has clearly never worked anything other than a 9-to-5 Monday-to-Friday job.
The rest of us undergo those kind of changes in our sleep schedule 2 or 3 times a week.
Are you saying those stats are wrong?
On a minor note…my pets were not keen on the change. Their biological clock told them when dinner was and they were not happy when it was delayed all of a sudden.
No biggie, they adjusted fine, but something I noticed (and I learned to slowly adjust feeding times before the time change so they were not affected).
I’m saying that if those stats are accurate then we ought to see similar year-round effects on shift workers and other people whose lifestyle requires them to maintain a non-fixed wakeup time and bed time, and I am not aware of there being evidence of such a thing.
Or maybe 9-to-5ers are just soft and can’t handle what us proles have had to put up with our entire lives.
I think that is actually a real problem and something many companies are aware of and try to mitigate.
Not sure if this should be debated in this thread though (I’m fine with it if the mods are fine with it).
We have several pilots on the board who may be able to talk about this (if they see this thread).