# why does Daylight Savings Time exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 4, 2003, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-daylight-savings-time-exist/205569 "2003-10-04T17:45:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2003, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-daylight-savings-time-exist/205569/21 "2003-10-05T19:52:41Z")
If you adjust school schedules, then you also have to adjust everybody else’s work schedules as well or else you will end up with even more problems with working parents and school kids having bad schedules. ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2003, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-daylight-savings-time-exist/205569/22 "2003-10-05T20:17:55Z")
I remember having to walk to school when the sun didn’t rise until 8:23. Our school day started at 8:15, and the walk took about half an hour. (I think this was 4th or 5th grade.) So it was solidly dark when I had to walk to school along a couple of busy 2-lane roads with no sidewalks (15 foot gravel shoulders). Very dangerous, IMO. I don’t think saving a few kilowatts justified the safety of numerous school children. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2003, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-daylight-savings-time-exist/205569/23 "2003-10-05T23:28:33Z")
> [@](#): > > The US is on Daylight Saving Time from the beginnging of April to the end of October. That’s 7 months. So “Standard” Time is used less. So shouldn’t DST be Standard and Standard be “Daylight Wasting Time”? :D:D **Its now 7pm, DWT - Daylight _Wasting_ Time!** I love it! ---
**Author:** ![swansont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5fc32e/32.png) [@swansont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swansont)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2003, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-daylight-savings-time-exist/205569/24 "2003-10-05T23:37:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by AWB \* > \*\*The US is on Daylight _Saving_ Time from the beginnging of April to the end of October. That’s 7 months. So “Standard” Time is used less. So shouldn’t DST be Standard and Standard be “Daylight Wasting Time”? :D:D \*\* The time interest from saving daylight pays for those leap seconds we add now and then. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2003, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-daylight-savings-time-exist/205569/25 "2003-10-06T02:38:20Z")
God, I hate Daylight Savings Time. All it does for me is to mess up my sleeping habits for a few days after I change the clocks. I say get rid of DST, or keep it year-round, but please stop the let’s-switch-between-the-two-time-systems crap. ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2003, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-daylight-savings-time-exist/205569/26 "2003-10-06T04:34:44Z")
The one reason I like DST is that my birthday is in the last week of October. There’s a 1 in 7 chance that my birthday will be that much longer. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2003, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-daylight-savings-time-exist/205569/27 "2003-10-06T11:43:24Z")
To those of you that hate DST - you can always move to one of the several states that don’t use it. 🙂 (Hawaii, Arizona and Indiana, I believe). My old boss was convinced that DST was the norm and he hated reverting in the fall. It took a lot of arguing (and some astromomy magazine articles) to convince him otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2003, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-daylight-savings-time-exist/205569/28 "2003-10-06T13:01:05Z")
I love the anti-DST people who think that having everyone individually changing their schedules to fit the sunrise is easier than everyone changing their clocks by an hour twice a year. Having DST in the winter would mean that everyone would spend their entire morning in darkness in order to keep our ‘normal’ schedule. That’s why standard time is where it is. In the summer, we go to DST so that hours of sunshine aren’t wasted at 5am when nobody is awake, we get to use that sunshine in the evening when everyone is awake. Without DST, the only way we would get to use that sunshine is to have everyone decide to wake up earlier and alter their schedule. Most people’s mornings are spent getting ready to start their work day. Work days are normally begun at specified times. If you wake up earlier to take advantage of the sunshine, you get zero benefit unless you start and end your workday earlier as well. Who cares if you have an extra hour in the morning, what are you going to do with it? It’s one hour between the time you get up and go to work, no stores are open, there’s nothing to do, completely wasted. With DST, everyones workday starts and ends an hour earlier, nobody has to change their schedule, just their clock, and we all do it at the same time. Train times, store hours, school hours, work hours, etc. are all the same, you don’t need to remember that your work hours changed from this to that this week, but the store won’t change for 2 more weeks, and the school for 3 more weeks. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2003, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-daylight-savings-time-exist/205569/29 "2003-10-06T13:44:45Z")
I guess I am unusual in that I LIKE DST and I still think the energy savings are significant. But my reason for posting is to address the symmetry question that a few posters have raised. Assume that the reason for using what I will call winter time (that is standard time, even if it is less than standard) is for the purpose of waiting for school busses, driving to work, etc, not in total darkness, then it makes sense to arrange it symmetrically not with respect to total day length, but to time of sunrise. I don’t recall the exact dates, but earliest sunset occurs some time around Dec. 6 and latest sunrise about a month later. The winter solstice comes about halfway between. This effect is caused by the eccentiricity of the earth’s orbit around the sun. And if you check the calendar, you will see that the days of winter time are roughly symmetric with respect to the date of latest sunrise. I suspect that this is no accident and that the people who chose these times actually understood what they were doing! Amazing! ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2003, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-daylight-savings-time-exist/205569/30 "2003-10-06T16:47:47Z")
If DST was done away with, there would be one less thing to bitch about or we’d just find something else to replace it. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2003, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-daylight-savings-time-exist/205569/31 "2003-10-06T17:47:00Z")
A classic Pat Oliphaunt cartoon from the Nixon administration perfectly captures the idea of DST: to make a blanket longer by cutting a foot off of one end and sewing it back onto the other end. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2003, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-daylight-savings-time-exist/205569/32 "2003-10-06T18:18:12Z")
I think Daylight Saving Time is great. That Oliphaunt cartoon is demagoguery. We’re not cutting the blanket; we’re pulling it down so it covers our toes instead of going way past over our heads. We need it to warm our feet, not to cover our noses. Daylight before everyone will get up is wasted, so we’re saving it by putting it in the evening, when it’s useful. But what I really want is a law that says that I don’t have to be in the office before the sun rises or after it sets. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-daylight-savings-time-exist/205569.md?page=1)