The American Spectator : It's Digital Nuisance Time

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It's Digital Nuisance Time

By Peter Hannaford on 3.14.11 @ 6:06AM

Nothing saved, nothing gained.

Yesterday you forgot to set the alarm clock so you had to scramble to get to church. This morning when you got in the car you realized you hadn't re-set the clock. So, next weekend you'll pull out the owner's manual and once again figure out how to do it.

Welcome to Daylight Saving Time, a.k.a. Digital Nuisance Time. In this age when nearly everything is digital, millions of Americans (not to mention folks elsewhere) must remember to set all of their timepieces ahead. A few timepieces do it themselves. Most do not. And it costs businesses untold millions to do the same with office and operating equipment.

The phenomenon has been with us off and on since World War I, when it was thought that the reduced need for electricity in the evening would save fuel for the war effort. No one was able to prove that it did. Critics said that the real reason it was adopted was that President Woodrow Wilson wanted more time in the evening to play golf.

It came back full force in World War II, lasting year-round from 1942 to 1945. In the 1960s it was used according to local laws until Congress decided to make it uniform throughout the country. Congress has been tinkering with it ever since. In 2007 it extended DST to begin the second Sunday in March (yesterday) until the first Sunday in November. The underlying theory seems to be that if a little bit is good, a lot must be better.

Several reasons are advanced for having DST, most with little evidence to support them. The very term "Daylight Saving Time" is a misnomer, since it does not "save" daylight; it only shifts it from the morning to the evening.

One reason put forth is traffic safety. A recent study by Carnegie Mellon University found that pedestrians are three times more likely to be hit by a car in the days immediately following the end of DST. This corroborates a 2001 University of Michigan survey. It found that 65 persons were killed during the week before the end of DST and 227 the week after.

Another reason: Less violent crime. Government studies show that crimes where darkness is a factor occur 10 to 13 percent more in evening Standard Times than in comparable DSTs. Is this attributable to DST or to the continuing downward trend in violent crime?

Saves gasoline? The government calculates that Daylight Saving Time results in about four days' worth of reduced U.S. gasoline consumption a year.

Safer Halloween? Having more daylight for trick-or-treating children was expected to reduce the hazard of accidents with traffic. Kids didn't like it. It turns out they waited to go out until it was dark. It was more spooky that way.

Who likes it? Various surveys show many people say they do because they enjoy longer summer evenings. The surveys are asked in a way that almost always elicits that response. Evening golfers like it. Shopping mall store proprietors like it, presumably because it provides a greater incentive for customers to shop till they drop.

Who doesn't like it? People with sleep disorders. Farmers and poultry producers (Canadian Marty Notenbomer, for example, says, "The chickens do not adapt to the changed clock until several weeks have gone by."), school children (who get to wait in the dark for the school bus), businesses having to reset their automatic equipment. And don't forget China and India. Neither of them uses it and, lest we forget, China is eating our lunch in international trade and India's not far behind.

The solution to the inconvenience, dubious benefits and confusion caused by Daylight Saving Time -- Digital Nuisance Time -- is simple. Make it year around or do away with it year around. Russia's President Dmitri Medvedev, after reducing the number of his country's times zones from 11 to eight, is considering just that--DST year around or not at all.

Congress has tinkered with this for decades. It's time for them to simplify this aspect of life, period. Then they can concentrate on cutting spending and the federal deficit.

About the Author

Peter Hannaford was closely associated with the late President Ronald Reagan for a number of years. His latest book is Reagan's Roots: The People and Places That Shaped His Character.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (34) | Leave a comment

Kitty| 3.14.11 @ 7:31AM

"Congress has tinkered with this for decades."

Another SNAFU, thanks to Congress. >:O

Occam's Tool| 3.14.11 @ 10:06PM

My Damn State Blackberry won't let me control time, and it hasn't shifted forward automatically.

Appleby| 3.14.11 @ 7:34AM

You would think with the world on the brink of disaster, perhaps we could just tack this thing on the end of a Pork Bill and get rid of it.

JimP| 3.14.11 @ 7:58AM

I agree. Since it is arbirtrary to begin with, just pick one and stay with it. Personally I prefer the "dailight savings time" version of time arbitrariness.

LiveFreeOrDie| 3.14.11 @ 10:55AM

It should be DST all the time. Anything else is just... stupid.

john dubose| 3.14.11 @ 8:29AM

The onetime cost of this would be substantial. But the thing to do is to put the ENTIRE WORLD on Grennich standard time. Do it once and NEVER change anybody's clock again. Then let individual institutions decide their own schedules.

So what if you go to work at 7PM ?

A. C. Santore| 3.14.11 @ 8:29AM

Simple solutions are usually the best.

If "The chickens do not adapt to the changed clock until several weeks have gone by"), then, for heaven's sake, don't tell them!

And don't change their clocks!

Gheeesh!

Louis Jenkins| 3.14.11 @ 9:05AM

As the Indian said, "Only a white man would cut a foot off of the end of his blanket and sew it on the top, then think the blanket was longer."

emilio lizardo| 3.14.11 @ 9:20AM

DST is a gift for the physically active, providing hours of daylight for after work pursuits that keep one sane. This exempts, of course, the couch potato and the slug, and well represented they are today, too damn lazy to fiddle with their clocks. What do you suppose they have to do when travel causes them to change time zones, besides p**s and moan?

SpiralArchitect| 3.14.11 @ 5:51PM

Let me get this straight:

The amount of light is the same. The only diference is the timeat that given moment.

So doing something at 5 pm is OK but unthinkable if it is said to be 6 pm at the same moment?

PCC| 3.14.11 @ 9:51AM

Speaking for the couch potato and slug segment of the population, I'm against DST. I'm against physically active people, too.

Please pass the Doritos.

Ned| 3.14.11 @ 11:38AM

Is there any more Cheese Whiz?

I don't care what the damn clock says, I'm NOT getting out of bed...

Occam's Tool| 3.14.11 @ 10:05PM

Indeed!

Paul McGrath| 3.14.11 @ 11:54AM

Monday is always bad but this Monday, the beginning of DST, is the worst goddamn day of the year.

Too Many Tims| 3.14.11 @ 12:13PM

I am sure that authority for imposing DST is enshrined in the Commerce Clause or some such.

Cuffs| 3.14.11 @ 12:54PM

I work for a clock & time systems mfg and can't tell you the hours and expense caused by DST. The recent change in the dates was a nightmare!
No one in the gov't. ever calculated the problems
endured by average citizens & businesses.
When do they ever?

Al Adab| 3.14.11 @ 1:10PM

Takes us right into the universe of relativity posited by Einstein. What time is it really?

buckyeman| 3.14.11 @ 1:13PM

I've always been confused by this. Why not just pass a law requiring everyone to go to work at seven instead of eight. If the response is that "we don't want the government telling us what to do!" then I give up.

Renaissance Nerd| 3.14.11 @ 6:05PM

I know a lot of people that love DST but they're insane. I live in Arizona, where we don't bend the neck to this outdated and misguided attempt at social control, but it still causes me no end of headaches because I work with people from all over the country and the world. PAIN in the neck, plain and simple, for no benefit.

I love the guy saying it gives one more time after work. Yeah, if you're a government weenie and work 9-5. That isn't anything like standard anymore in the private sector. Work times are becoming far more flexible, because otherwise how would they get us to work all the extra time and on the weekends? I haven't worked 40 hours a week since...actually I never have, and presently 46 hours is the minimum I'm allowed to turn in. Naturally I never ever turn in the minimum, that's a pink slip waiting to happen. If you want evenings off to play golf and enjoy your 'active life,' fine--get a job that will allow it. Forcing everybody else in the world to spend a pile of money for your convenience (or conniving at same) is just plain wicked.

emilio lizardo| 3.15.11 @ 9:11AM

and being a supercilious sanctimonious prig is, well, being a supercilious sanctimonious prig. I'll settle for being a conniving, wicked (non-government) 60 hour a week working physician who enjoys being physically fit,even if some of it's at your expense. God knows this country spends a lot of money tending to the maladies caused by sloth, inactivity, overwork by deskjockeys and tortilla chips, and you dont hear the fit amongst us complaining about that.

Radioman777| 3.14.11 @ 6:17PM

Scrap it.

Cristall | 3.14.11 @ 7:13PM

I like the idea of everyone meeting in the middle, just changing it 30 minutes one time and be done with it forever.

Bob K.| 3.14.11 @ 7:30PM

Move the time zones instead. Why should we be controlled by what time it is in England! Rotate them like a clock on a yearly basis. Then things will work out equally every 24 years. Look at it as "time diversity!"

Wayne | 3.14.11 @ 9:09PM

I live 20 years (Arizona and Hawaii) without daylight savings time and prefer it. In fact I felt superior to the fools that had to keep switching their clocks. One odd thing however. I had to go to Operations and had to reset the clock because the computer system "assumed" there was day light savings time.

Kevin C| 3.14.11 @ 9:31PM

I live in Arizona. We don't change. Ever. As far as being active goes, I play tennis in the morning before work and there's still plenty of time in the evening for whatever I want to do outside, including more tennis (with or without lights).

Tom Bruner| 3.14.11 @ 9:48PM

For a few years I boycotted DST. I did change my clocks as ordered, but I also changed my alarm and my work hours to compensate. Maybe I'll go back to that policy, it was nice.

Occam's Tool| 3.14.11 @ 10:04PM

I live in Northern Minnesota. Fargo is hours South of us. In the Summer it doesn't matter, in the Winter it doesn't help.

Elvin| 3.15.11 @ 12:00AM

I love DST. Although this morning was tough getting up earlier, it was all worth it when I got home from work . There was just enough sunlight left to throw a football around with my son for 20 minutes. I'm looking forward to bike rides next month. Changing the clocks is easy. It takes about five minutes. The alternative is to print up different schedules for winter/summer. It's just cheaper to change the clocks.

Charles Dennison| 3.15.11 @ 5:37AM

Frankly, I am amazed at the assumption is always made by pro DST people that those against it are lazy and just don't want to bother with changing alarm clocks! The objections are actually far to numerous to list, however, the main contention of my own is the toll it takes on "personal" clocks. Please take the "time" to look up the health problems resulting from this moronic decision. The fact that some people want to continually manipulate constants into variables is truly the source of most disagreements. And using the tactic of belittling the opposing view as a debating point is usually something we all decry as a desperate liberal scheme. So I am quite surprised to see so much of it here.

DLB| 3.15.11 @ 7:07AM

I like DST because I like there to be daylight when I get home from work. But I HATE changing the time twice a year. Why not just keep it the same all year?

holmegm| 3.15.11 @ 12:00PM

Since obviously everybody *doesn't* have the same opinion about it, wouldn't adjusting work schedules and such be easier and fairer and *more free* than the Procrustean solution of adjusting everyone's freakin' clock?!?

I'm glad some of you like DST, and thus are blissfully not bothered by it. And I'd "like" it if nobody listened to rap - that would fit right into my personal preferences - but I can see the sense of not banning rap; not imposing my likes via top down mandate. Ya know? :)