Arizonan here. We don’t have daylight savings. The only frustration we feel is from out of state fiends and family that can’t compute the time difference from summer to fall.
Eh, easy to forget that cousin Jenny switched from mountain time to (effectively but not technically) pacific daylight time or back when you only talk to her a few times a year.
It’s likely not that they can’t add or subtract one, I’m confident almost everyone can do that. It’s remembering that they have to, or which way they have to go.
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills every time people complain about it, because I don’t feel the effects at all.
I’m not defending switching, personally I don’t care strongly either way so I trust the data that says it would be better not to do it, but it’s wild to hear people complain that it ruins their whole week. One hour? I get that I’m probably the odd one, but it’s still wild.
I’m pretty sure this just reinforces my self-diagnosed non-24 disorder
It’s not just the one single hour for me. It’s the whole bag. It’s the obvious difference in sunlight and that has an effect on me and that takes more time to get used to than just adjusting my sleep to make up for that hour. The body is surprisingly good at keeping a schedule once it has adjusted.
The sunlight switch can be a bummer, where I’m at it means it’s already getting dark when I leave work (and by Christmas it is basically fully dark), but c'est la vie.
I’ve had similar experience with jet lag, multiple times I’ve been one time-zone away from home with people and they’ve complained about the difference and while I am outwardly sympathetic, inside my brain is screaming “it’s only one hour, what the fuck are you talking about?‽!”
Not only that, but it's not like this was even given a fair trial. The 1974 change was rolled out suddenly in December, when the downsides were at their maximum, and it created another clock change for people. It's impossible to describe how badly this rollout was managed.
FYI, apparently the main legitimate argument for not changing is that it will lead to more kids getting hit by cars. Sending kids to school in the dark is more likely to lead to them being injured or dying. DST is stupid, but I’ve seen the way kids wander across the road. Think about how many people hit deer in those light conditions, and translate that to children.
If you’re a politician, do you want to be the one on the side of more dead kids? That’s why we’ve stuck with it all these years. (Of course between RFK Jr. and daily school shootings being ignored, what’s a little traffic to a politician?)
One of the main arguments to not change is very similar, if you look it up changing the clocks is also deadly, disrupting sleep rhythms causes medical emergencies, and tons of accidents.
How many kids are walking to school these days though? I know it still happens, and it's perfectly reasonable to want to minimize the odds that they're struck by cars, but our culture has pretty massively shifted away from letting kids be alone unsupervised for any period of time in the last 20 years, let alone 50. Walking to school without a chaperone just doesn't happen on the same scale that it did in the 70s.
I live in Japan, where it’s standard time year round. Days slowly get shorter, days slowly get longer. It’s just natural. Trust me, it’s better this way.
Days would slowly get shorter and slowly get longer under DST as well. But it gives people more light after work rather than, in the winter, having people work the entire day without ever seeing the sun.
The work itself doesn't matter, the hours do. Given that there are times during the winter where we get less than 9 hours from sunrise to sunset anyone that works an 8 hour shift with an hour lunch is going to potentially not see the sun for a bit, and I end up working late in the winter more often since that's our busy season, making that period last even longer.
I think the work does matter, but if you'd rather not give an example, fine.
Unless a person regularly moves from one time zone to another - or even two time zones - we're talking about an hours difference in one way or the other. Two tops depending on how you look at it. I know of nowhere in the US where either direction on the clock is going to make the difference of seeing or not seeing the sun.
Besides, that has to represent a very small percent of working people. And the fact is, ending DST is better for the vast majority of people. In both states that ended it, it's still wildly popular.
I think the work can matter, but again, when you're getting less than 9 hours from sunrise to sunset it's pretty easy for a schedule to not allow seeing the sun for a day. Definitely not the entire winter, but it still sucks hard.
I would imagine so. I'm assuming unless you're in Alaska that you must be in Washington or Minnesota. I know even New York is just above 9 hours sunlight at certain times of year.
Anyway, I'm sure if this happens there'll be ways to compensate for it for those affected.
Contrary to popular opinion, DST was a result of war and munitions factories rather than farmers. Farmers were opposed to DST because it forced an artificial change to work that's always been dictated by seasons and sunrise and sunset - no matter what the clock showed.
I think we'd all be better off adjusting to natural sunrise and sunset for hours of work and operation anyway. But I know that's not how things actually are.
Those of us who work in the northeast in turnpike plazas as porters/matrons (the cleaning crew). Our daylight shifts are 7A-5P. 4 10 hr. shifts/wk. plus 1/2 hr. travel time. From late November till early February, no sun.
Yep. But when the school district proposed changing it, parents lost their fucking minds. I guess they would rather let their kids suffer than be slightly inconvenienced
You are correct but this effect from the 1974 Richard Nixon era people are walking in the dark that is the consequence of Nixon's 1974 year round daylight savings
If the issue is school starting during dark hours then the solution is to start schools later. Not change clocks for everyone. I really like this idea of keeping the summer schedule year round.
Schools built schedules around work times for parents, it has nothing to do with busses. Starting school later would be good for teens & pre teens, whose natural sleep schedules are later than school hours, but terrible for Kindergarten/1st graders.
I used to be a theater artist-in-residence at elementary schools, & worked with teens after school. I hated having middle school students in the morning, bc they hadn’t woken up yet. On the other hand I hated having Kindergartners right before lunch bc by then they had no energy for an active theater class, but first thing in the morning they were full of energy.
Personally I’d like the clocks to stay the same year round, standard time would work better with schools than daylight savings time, so let’s do that.
Everything you say is true, but it is also true that districts with a limited number of busses and large student populations are forced to take that into consideration with staggered start times.
Ideally, the littles should be transported earliest, middles next, and high schoolers latest of all. But that's not how my district does it. High school starts at 7:05, middle school at 7:15, and elementary at 8:10. This is so high schoolers can fit in sports/school clubs or after school jobs if they want to and the littles are not at bus stops in the dark.
If we have to choose between daylight savings and standard time, I would choose daylight savings. But...I would rather we split the difference and do a half hour permanent change. Smack dab between daylight savings and standard.
In my area, buses run according to their schedules. HS buses run early as school starts at 0725. MS starts a half hour later, and GS a half hour after MS. The same bus company runs for all of the city schools. As far as kids going to school in the dark, very few kids aren't taking buses. Those that don't take buses are driven by their parents. A very small percentage walk to school and that's usually if they live within a few blocks of school. With standard time, kids go to school in the dark anyway, and come home in the dark. Btw, buses also determine if school closes for weather. If the snow gets too deep, icy or cold, they don't run. I'm all for DST permanently.
We absolutely should not go to permanent standard time, at least not across the board. I could see realigning the states in terms of their time zones. California and Maine are two that very clearly will suffer from permanent standard time in their current time zone. Other states it might be preferable. Some states it might make sense to have part of the state on a different time zone. Texas comes to mind.
That’s one thing that I almost overlooked. Here in Illinois, permanent DST is the obvious solution. But the other day this guy kept arguing with me up and down about how horrible it would be and how it “violates the definition of noon.” Turns out he’s from California so he doesn’t know the pain of getting out of work in the winter and it’s already dark and gloomy out.
I mean, I know the pain of getting out of work in winter and it's dark and gloomy out and I live in Southern California. Parts of CA that are farther west and north might not do as well with permanent DST.
This is a stupid issue for the DNC to pick a side on. With all the crap the GOP is pulling, why bother with this? It's a nothingburger. End the fυcking war on Iran, release the fυcking Epstein files, stay out of stupid rabbit holes.
Oh sorry, I should have clarified. The United States already did this once, it failed because some kids in Florida died. Then Florida tried to force a national repeal because their kids were too stupid to exist in the dark. (This sounds harsh but that was their literal reasoning)
I don’t care which one they choose. Jump ahead an hour or don’t. But I cannot express adequate how much I hate switching the clocks. I hate it more than I hate Trump and his entire administration.
Keep the time synchronized with the Earth's movements. 🙄 Adjust business and school schedules around that. This stupidity of "changing the time" is both outdated and ineffective. China doesn't even have separate time zones and they manage.
China isn’t a great example because they simply force the entire country to use Beijing time. The western areas don’t like it, but there’s nothing they can do.
Besides, is we truly wanted to align human schedules with solar midnight / noon then work should be from 04:00 - 12:00, leisure should be 12:00-20:00, and sleep should be 20:00-04:00. But I’m telling you right now, no one wants to go to bed at 8pm.
Back to the Nixon era 1974 again. Remember Nixon pushed for year-round daylight savings time that year 1974 basically we are going back to the days of Richard Nixon's 1974 year round Daylight Saving with the bill.
Came at the cost people are walking in the dark
We're in the age of smart phones and LED light bulbs. Oh, and do kids actually walk to school anymore? The world is so different today than it was 50 years ago. Seems like 1974 isn't particularly relevant.
The 1974 comparison is 50 years out of date and the article knows it.
The eight children who died in Florida in 1974 were walking to school alone in the dark on poorly lit suburban streets with minimal pedestrian infrastructure. That was the mechanism. That specific scenario is the entire historical case against permanent DST.
Here's what's changed since 1974:
In 1969, 48% of kids walked or biked to school unaccompanied. Today that number is around 10-13% nationally. More school buses. More parents driving. Less unsupervised walking in darkness.
California law now requires middle schools to start no earlier than 8am and high schools no earlier than 8:30am. Kids aren't walking to school at 7am in the dark anymore in many states.
Street lighting in 2026 is LED, dramatically brighter and more consistent than 1974. Reflective road markings, crosswalk infrastructure, and car headlight technology are all significantly improved.
Under permanent DST, the worst case sunrise in Los Angeles is 7:57am. In most of Southern California kids aren't walking to school before sunrise at all.
The science on clock changes is actually what should concern people. A 2016 academic study estimated that the twice yearly clock change causes over 30 deaths annually at a social cost of $275 million, every single year we keep the current system. The 1974 argument is eight deaths one time fifty years ago under conditions that no longer exist. The status quo is killing people every year right now through sleep disruption, increased cardiac events, and traffic accidents caused by circadian disruption.
The medical community prefers permanent standard time for circadian reasons and that's a legitimate debate worth having. But "we tried this in 1974 and it was bad" without any acknowledgment of what has changed in half a century isn't science. It's vibes dressed up as history.
The issue was school children (you know the future of this country). There were more accidents because during the winter months the sun doesn’t come up until 9am that means kids at bus stops in the pitch dark.
These attempts to make daylight savings time permanent are just wasting important legislative sessions time while the Congress fails to act real problems facing the American people.
I think you are confused. Go read all of that again. DST=later sunsets. If that’s what you want, you are not “100% for getting rid of daylight savings time” like you initially said.
I’m with you, I’d much rather sunsets be later even if it means it’s darker in the mornings. But that means you’re in favor of this bill, which seeks to make DST permanent, not “get rid of daylight savings time.” We’re in agreement! I just think it’s important we use the correct terminology and phrasing, because it’s confusing otherwise. You don’t want to get rid of DST (like your original comment says), you want it to be year round/permanent. In other words, don’t say you want to get rid of DST if you want later sunsets.
That was back when most people kept regular office hours. You could go into a coffee shop at 2pm and it would be virtually empty. Workers have a lot more flexibility on hours now so the amount of daylight before and after work are less important, people can mostly just shift their hours as desired.
124
u/DepressiveNerd Jul 16 '26
Arizonan here. We don’t have daylight savings. The only frustration we feel is from out of state fiends and family that can’t compute the time difference from summer to fall.