# Why Does DST Start So Early In The US? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 5, 2013, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106 "2013-03-05T18:46:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/21 "2013-03-05T22:00:31Z")
Something that also comes up twice a year: It’s Daylight Saving Time. There’s no ‘s’ on the end of Saving. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/22 "2013-03-05T22:16:38Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Great, but my employer doesn’t do that. If they’re on DST, so am I. Exactly. Unless you’re retired, or truly self-employed, keeping your own hours probably isn’t an option. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/23 "2013-03-05T22:18:01Z")
> [@Mr.Greenjeans](#): > > There’s something unnatural to me about waking up for school/work in the dark. Beats getting out of work in the dark. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/24 "2013-03-05T23:37:52Z")
How many times have they extended DST? I seem to remember another extension some years back. It just keeps growing and growing, but now I guess it’s stretching the feasible limits. It seems weird to me to keep making more and more DST like that. All I can think as to the reason is _chercher l’argent_—follow the money. It’s got to be because somebody influential makes a bigger profit that way. How else do things get done in this country? ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/25 "2013-03-05T23:48:47Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Beats getting out of work in the dark. Not really. And depending on what your work schedule is, it’s entirely possible to do both during the winter. It sucks unbelievable amounts of balls to drag yourself out of bed in the pitch-ass black night (6:30am), drive to work in the pre-dawn (7:30 am), and drive home in the rapidly-darkening gloaming (6:30 pm). ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/26 "2013-03-05T23:52:39Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > How many times have they extended DST? I seem to remember another extension some years back. It just keeps growing and growing, but now I guess it’s stretching the feasible limits. It seems weird to me to keep making more and more DST like that. All I can think as to the reason is _chercher l’argent_—follow the money. It’s got to be because somebody influential makes a bigger profit that way. How else do things get done in this country? I don’t really care who is making a profit from it in this case. Good for them. All I know is it gets dark way too early in New England in the winter and would stay that way for too long if something wasn’t done. I would like DST all year round. However, I understand there is only certain amount of daylight hours to work with so I will compromise and concede that some people hate going to school/work in the dark so the hours need to be adjusted in the dead of winter to accommodate the vast majority of people as best as possible. That period needs to be as short as possible. There is nothing better though than getting home from work at 6:30 pm in late June or July and knowing you still have a couple of hours of daylight left to work or play with. That is practically a vacation on its own every day and you can get real outside things done that you couldn’t if it was only a scant hour or left according to standard time. I go swimming, go for walks in the park, do yard work and much more every night then. I would be willing to start a civil war over the issue if it ever came to that. There is no more important issue to the mental health of the nation especially in the northern regions. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/27 "2013-03-06T00:38:40Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > There is no more important issue to the mental health of the nation especially in the northern regions. Every year it comes down to people farther from the equator loving DST and people nearer the equator saying “What’s the big deal? Keep standard time year round.” We seriously need the daylight at the end of the day in northern climes. Plus without DST it would be getting bright at 4:00 AM in June where I am. 5:00 is much easier to handle. The birds, kids, and pets don’t go by the clock. ---
**Author:** ![Motorgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/28 "2013-03-06T01:23:16Z")
> [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > Not really. And depending on what your work schedule is, it’s entirely possible to do both during the winter. It sucks unbelievable amounts of balls to drag yourself out of bed in the pitch-ass black night (6:30am), drive to work in the pre-dawn (7:30 am), and drive home in the rapidly-darkening gloaming (6:30 pm). Ugh - round these parts in the dead of winter it’s pitch dark when I get up at 7, shady dawn when I walk to the train at 8, and pitch dark by 4:30pm when I leave work. It sucks. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/29 "2013-03-06T02:09:01Z")
> [@Mr.Greenjeans](#): > > There’s something unnatural to me about waking up for school/work in the dark. Captain Kangaroo would be so disappointed in you. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/30 "2013-03-06T02:18:38Z")
Wouldn’t surprise me if changing the DST dates was intended to benefit the manufacturers of security systems, lighting timers and other things with hard-coded clocks like the in-dash entertainment/navigation system in my truck. All of these things will have the wrong time next week. ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/31 "2013-03-06T11:25:14Z")
You’re close **gotpasswords**. You see in the US we have a unique form of government consisting of whores, who spend their careers slurping obediently in the laps of their corporate johns. Around 2007, a few of their candy making corporate masters instructed the whores to increase their income (since that’s why they put them in office). As a result, a new law eventually changed the clocks nation-wide so the young-uns would spend more time trick-or-treating, resulting in increased candy sales. Here’s a transcript of an [NPR](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7779869) program about this. Here’s a snippet of the interview, if you don’t want to click the link: \*BLOCK: This may be kind of an urban legend, but I thought I had heard that one of the backers behind extending Daylight Saving Time into the beginning of November was the candy industry, and it all had to do with Halloween. Mr. DOWNING: This is no kind of legend. This is the truth. For 25 years, candy-makers have wanted to get trick-or-treat covered by Daylight Saving, figuring that if children have an extra hour of daylight, they’ll collect more candy. In fact, they went so far during the 1985 hearings on Daylight Saving as to put candy pumpkins on the seat of every senator, hoping to win a little favor. \* Sorry about the cynicism. If you want to refer to them as “Congress” and “Lobbyists” go ahead. I prefer the more accurate terms. ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/32 "2013-03-06T11:32:16Z")
Re-reading that, it came off as a little snarky towards gotpasswords. That wasn’t my intent, and I apologize. I should proofread better (or wait until my second cup of coffee before posting).:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Carryon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Carryon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carryon)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/33 "2013-03-06T12:41:55Z")
The real problem as I see it, is the fact the boundaries are wrong to begin with. For instance, Detroit should be in the Central Time Zone. But long ago Detroit wanted to move to Eastern Time to be aligned with New York City. By allowing Detroit to be on Eastern Time, you essentially moved Detroit to year round DSL. Now when DSL comes around Detroit, which is already an hour ahead of where it should be, is even more off. There is a definite west movement of time zone boundaries. I read a history of DSL and there was a strong movement in the 30s to put Chicago in the Eastern Time Zone. And it’s not just the US, look at China, a country as big as the US but one time zone. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/34 "2013-03-06T12:48:41Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > No it was changed by one week for Halloween. The other three weeks were added in the spring. Right now it is about equally spaced relative to the equinoxes. It starts one to two weeks before and ends one to two weeks after. Where I live, the autumnal equinox is September 22, so DST ends 6-7 weeks after the equinox. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/35 "2013-03-06T16:22:26Z")
> [@Carryon](#): > > And it’s not just the US, look at China, a country as big as the US but one time zone. Think you’ve got time zone problems, consider the unfortunate people in Kashgar, which is farther west than New Delhi. They have to live on Beijing time, offset by about 3 hours from their sun time. Get up in the morning and go to work in the middle of the night. Go to bed while the sun is still high in the sky. It’s madness. ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/36 "2013-03-06T17:46:31Z")
> [@Sterling\_Archer](#): > > Not if you’re still asleep. Most people aren’t up before 6:30 am, so any daylight before then is wasted. DST attempts to keep the daylight hours coinciding with our awake hours as much as possible. The obvious answer to this problem is to make our work hours flexible so we wake up when the sun rises and go to bed when it sets, give or take. After all, humans did that for hundreds of thousands of years until this thing called “civilization” came up. We’d be the better for it too according to some medical research ([example](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/22/light-night-health-bad-cancer-driving-sleep_n_1619435.html)); of course, it might be hard to sleep for 12+ hours a day during the winter (I guess in this case keep our waking time in sync with sunrise, say in 1/2 hour increments, we’d need to keep track of that though). ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106/37 "2013-03-06T19:43:11Z")
> [@Michael63129](#): > > The obvious answer to this problem is to make our work hours flexible so we wake up when the sun rises and go to bed when it sets, give or take. After all, humans did that for hundreds of thousands of years until this thing called “civilization” came up. We’d be the better for it too according to some medical research ([example](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/22/light-night-health-bad-cancer-driving-sleep_n_1619435.html)); of course, it might be hard to sleep for 12+ hours a day during the winter (I guess in this case keep our waking time in sync with sunrise, say in 1/2 hour increments, we’d need to keep track of that though). Good luck with that. People get confused enough when we change the clocks twice a year…you want to make people adjust their work hours on a monthly basis, give or take? Again, possibly realistic for those who are self-employed, and are able to set their own work hours (and who don’t need to worry about the impact of those changes on their kids, their animals, etc.) Incredibly unrealistic for pretty much anyone else. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-dst-start-so-early-in-the-us/652106.md?page=1)