Well, it’s time to change the clocks back again and of course, time to argue about changing to permanent DST or ST. I have a suggestion: split the difference. Put the clocks permanently half an hour forward from Standard Time. Eastern Time would be UTC−04:00, Central Time would be UTC−05:30, and so forth.
The main objection would be a lot of disruption of schedules, but it would be a one time thing. Right now we have schedules disrupted twice a year when we change back and forth from Standard time to Daylight time.
There’s no real reason we can’t have time zones with a non-integer hour displacement from UTC. There’s several places around the world that already have that. India is the largest, with the entire country in Indian Time Zone of UTC+05:30. Australia Central Time is UTC+09:30 and Newfoundland is UTC+03:30. There’s even a few places that have other than half hour displacement.
How about we just go back to standard time and leave it there?
I mean, what’s next, someone proposes we all switch to one giant time zone, like China? Or someone proposes 8 times zones for the CONUS in half hour increments?
Personally, while the time changes can be annoying I have never found them a big deal, but I recognize this is a huge thing for quite a few people. Again, my vote is standard time and stick with it.
We should put it up to a national vote. But instead of winner-takes-all, we’ll set the time offset to be the weighted average of the votes for standard vs. DST. Sure, we might end up 37 minutes and 14 seconds off from the nearest hour, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay for democracy.
There is not supposed to be a “compromise” — the current directive (at least in Europe, where seasonal clock changes were re-introduced in many countries in the 1970s–1980s) is that each state pick a time zone (not sure if has to be a standard, meaning integer offset, time zone) and that’s it (unless they change it later, but it does not change based on the season). Problem is the endless committees involved in legislation keeping adoption and implementation stalled in bureaucratic hell for years, if not longer.
I am honestly not sure whether soliciting “public” involvement or votes makes for better or worse delays. Probably the latter, since it all goes back to committees and legislators anyway.
Luckily for some small businesses, they can set their own hours: if you want to open your flower shop at 11 a.m., you can just post that on your sign.
That was a really good place to put a typo. We know what you meant, but …
As always, the real problem is the US time zone borders are not in the correct places in terms of longitude, and the experience of ST or of DST varies mightily depending on which of the four corners of your home zone you live in.
See here for the difference between what is, and what should be if we were to align the borders with how the Earth is actually arranged:
As long as the time difference along the e.g. IL / IN border or the AL/GA border is 1 hour, somebody just on one or another side of that imaginary line will be unhappy. At least they will if they care about when the sunlight is versus when they sleep, work, and play.
The obvious solution to the whole TZ issue is actually to depopulate that part of the USA north of about the NC/VA line which extends westward roughly along a line of latitude all the way to the AZ/UT line. If you live south of there, DST or not doesn’t much matter. All the screaming starts a couple hundred miles north of there.
I’m not a fan of darkness at 8:00 am, which is the alternative. If the days of winter are short, which they are where I live, I’d rather have the darkness in late afternoon.
Half an hour would make the US off-kilter with almost the entire rest of the world. That’s not a solution, it’s just another kind of problem.
Ending the time shift already has majority support. Trouble is, that support is split between two different time options. You’re proposing splitting it between three different options, making it even harder to end the time shift.
I’d really like to see the time shift end, but I don’t care that much which time option we stay with. The likeliest path forward IMHO is that support starts to coalesce around one of the present two no-shift options.
Agree. From my own perspective, my biggest complaints are that it doesn’t get dark until 9 PM around the summer solstice (I’d prefer 8) and that the sun doesn’t come up until 7:30 AM around Halloween (I’d prefer 6:30 but would settle for 7). Both those problems would be solved by staying on Standard Time year round.
It seems the science suggests moving to permanent standard time while various economic actors, such as big retailers, want to move to permanent daylight saving time. Daylight saving 2023: Here are the states that want it to end : NPR.
Science versus money in a cage match only one can win!
It also varies depending on which side of the zone you live in, if you’re near the east or west edges.
I spent a year driving around the country once; including a couple of stretches in which I crossed several time zones, each over a couple of days. The jolt each time I crossed an edge was quite perceptible, at least to me; and it made me fully realize that people near one edge are actually an hour or more off from the other, including of course in how they experience sunrise and sunset relative to the human schedules of their lives.
I expect it’s even harder to explain to dairy livestock, for whom it’s not just feeding schedules but more crucially milking schedules that are a problem.
Those that do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.
We tried DST in January, 1974, and the law was repealed by the following fall. Parents don’t want the kids walking to school in the dark. If you start school an hour later just to satisfy those kiddies, then one parent will go to work an hour later. The kids that used to get out of school at 2pm would get out at 3pm. That means an hour of LESS after-school sunlight March-June and Sept & Oct. In the long run, everyone would eventually start/end the day later and you’ve accomplished nothing.
All times should be integral hours from UTC (even Newfoundland). If the Walmart in Indiana starts at 8:15 am Indiana time, what time is that in Ohio that’s 48 minutes ahead of Indiana.
If we must pick one choice, stick with standard time. Personally, I prefer it the way Europe does it: last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October.
