Daylight Saving Time Again!

[braumeister]

Plenty of kids walk to school in my district. My guess is that it has a lot to do with how well your neighborhood is equipped with sidewalks.

[Aerides]

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Originally Posted by Gumby Things have changed in the last 50 years. Around here, no kids walk to school alone. Either their parents walk with them, they drive them or they wait with them at the school bus stop. So that issue is a red herring

My neighborhood is the same. While I'm sure some kids still walk to school, overall it's got to be less than the 70's nationwide. And still, if that's the only problem, there must be other solutions than having 350 million people switch their clocks twice a year.

Further, millions of commuters drive home from the office in daylight most of the year, but then in darkness for a couple of months. I'd imagine there is some data that demonstrates a higher rate of accidents in that period.

I've never been a good night driver, and used to make sure not to leave the office too late in the winter months.

[Time2]

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Originally Posted by travelover Go metric? No way! I don’t want to go to 100 minutes per hour.

Ya, but just think how much longer the day will be and how many more hours of DST! That's got to be a win.

[Time2]

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Originally Posted by braumeister Seems to me that the daylight issue is utterly irrelevant at the Equator, and becomes more and more important the farther north you go. So Alaska and Scandinavia ought to be the models for what to do. Sure enough, Scandinavia (and most of the rest of Europe) go on DST, just a couple of weeks later, and come off it a week or two earlier. Based on that observation, I don't think any change in our DST habit is likely any time soon. Interestingly, only Chile and Paraguay in South America use DST, and only part of Australia.

Well then, as long as we are passing laws, let's force the Equatorial countries to give some of their daylight hours to Alaska and Scandinavia.
Hrumph!

[aaronc879]

This is one of those things that will never get a consensus agreement. I would prefer to have it permanent. I hate when it gets dark at 4P in the winter. I know that that would mean the sun doesn't rise until 9am some places but to me that is better than it getting dark at 4pm. If they got rid of it completely then it would be getting light at 4am in the summer. No thanks

[Time2]

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Originally Posted by Gumby I just want to be treated in a fair manner geographically. There are 360 degrees of longitude and 24 hours to divide up. That means every 15 degrees should be a new time zone. Starting at the prime meridian and moving West, that means every place from 0-15, 15-30, 30-60, 60-75 and 75-90 degrees of longitude should be in the same time zone. That means everything East of Philadelphia (at 75 degrees and a hair West longitude), including ALL of New England, should be in the same time zone as Halifax, Nova Scotia (at 63 degrees West), in what is commonly known as the Atlantic Time Zone.

It would be good for me! I live 0.5* on the West side of a timeline. That's a difference of 2 minutes on the sunset. But, I'm an hour behind the other side of the timeline. So it gets dark 58 minutes earlier than if I lived 29 miles East.

[street]

Kids walk to school here year around regardless of dark, light, winter, spring or fall.

[Philliefan33]

Seems like a good compromise would be to set the clocks midway between standard time and DST and be done with it. Of course unless the whole world agreed, the US would perpetually be 30 minutes out of sync with everyone else.

[6miths]

One possible solution to the 'going to school in the dark' problem is to begin school later. I was not happy when I went on exchange to a school district that started classes at 0800h as opposed to 0900h which was the norm for areas I had previously gone to school. I think there is reasonable evidence that children do better if they are allowed a bit more sleep in the morning. This seems even more relevant as our lives have seemed to shift later in the day, initially as we moved away from an agrarian society and then as more and more activities became available in the evenings.

[GenXguy]

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Originally Posted by ExFlyBoy5 I would be very happy for DST to remain permanent. I really dislike it getting dark at 4:45pm in the dead of winter. Blah!

Same here. I've always wanted permanent DST. And I sure wouldn't want permanent standard time - that would be worse than changing the clocks twice per year.

[Time2]

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Originally Posted by street Kids walk to school here year around regardless of dark, light, winter, spring or fall.

But Street,

they don't have to walk uphill both ways in the snow like we did!

[street]

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Originally Posted by Time2 But Street, they don't have to walk uphill both ways in the snow like we did!

That is true, it was way tougher in our days, for sure. Lol

[Turbo29]

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Originally Posted by Philliefan33 Seems like a good compromise would be to set the clocks midway between standard time and DST and be done with it. Of course unless the whole world agreed, the US would perpetually be 30 minutes out of sync with everyone else.

India's time zone is UTC +5:30.

At the time of this post (21:37 MST or PDT) it is 10:07 in India

[Telly]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 6miths One possible solution to the 'going to school in the dark' problem is to begin school later. I was not happy when I went on exchange to a school district that started classes at 0800h as opposed to 0900h which was the norm for areas I had previously gone to school. I think there is reasonable evidence that children do better if they are allowed a bit more sleep in the morning. This seems even more relevant as our lives have seemed to shift later in the day, initially as we moved away from an agrarian society and then as more and more activities became available in the evenings.

Long ago (!) when I was in school, High School kids started first, then Jr. High, then Elementary. And more or less that was what it was for our kids when they began school. But in later years, a new plan was implemented. The driver was research that showed that teenagers really needed more sleep. So then it all reversed around here. K-4th start first, then 5-6 & 7-8, followed last by 9-12. The first bus comes by just before 7 AM. Next bus is 8 AM, followed by the HS bus at 8:30 AM or so.
In winter on STD time, the latest the sun comes up is around 7:35. If DST was year-round, sunup would be around 8:35 AM.

[Telly]

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Originally Posted by Aerides ........Further, millions of commuters drive home from the office in daylight most of the year, but then in darkness for a couple of months. I'd imagine there is some data that demonstrates a higher rate of accidents in that period. I've never been a good night driver, and used to make sure not to leave the office too late in the winter months.

I remember the winter of 1974 when we all went to DST. It was awful. As a northerner (I relocated south years after that), it meant getting outside and starting up cars well before sunup. Had to turn on the interior lights so I could see the windows to scrape. Ice or frost would re-form quickly as I scraped, as, well, it was still night! Had to idle longer to get the car warmer, as even any slight any refreezing on glass meant no vision, as oncoming traffic lit up the glass. How deep was the snow, where was the road, many nights had after-dark snowfalls and first view of the situation was very poor in darkness. I worked at some places where I would get out at 8 PM, 10 PM, or midnight, and I would much rather drive home dark than start the day dark. There were times back then in my life that my day started at 8 AM (meaning BEING there and in place by 8 AM), and my day finished (leaving wherever I was then) at 10 PM or midnight. 1974 was cruel.

I really don't see what the big deal of changing time twice a year by ONE HOUR, ONE MEASLY HOUR, is!

Geeze, take a short biz trip to the adjoining time zone for a few days. Take an international trip, say 14 hours time difference, and work. It's doable. Many people do it.

There is a solution, where everyone could get the time they want (I think): Totally reject the concept of "Railroad Time". Before railroads, each town's time was set by setting the clocks to Noon when the sun was highest in the sky there. Just ignore airlines, TV, etc.

[Music Lover]

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Originally Posted by Telly I remember the winter of 1974 when we all went to DST. It was awful. As a northerner (I relocated south years after that), it meant getting outside and starting up cars well before sunup. Had to turn on the interior lights so I could see the windows to scrape. Ice or frost would re-form quickly as I scraped, as, well, it was still night! Had to idle longer to get the car warmer, as even any slight any refreezing on glass meant no vision, as oncoming traffic lit up the glass.

I've lived in a winter climate my entire life and unless there was freezing rain never once has ice reformed on a car window after scraping it off.

[Ronstar]

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Originally Posted by Time2 But Street, they don't have to walk uphill both ways in the snow like we did!

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Originally Posted by street That is true, it was way tougher in our days, for sure. Lol

This got me thinking so I thought I would look into it. I did walk uphill both ways to school in grades 1-3. In snow and on dry land.

Starting at 568 MSL at our old house, then crested the rr tracks at 572, then downhill to school at 560. So I walked uphill 4' on the way to school and uphill 12' on the way home. Not much of an incline over the 4000' walk, but still uphill.

Grades 4-8 walk was a straight downhill 6' over 2000' to school, 6' uphill on the way home.

First 2 years of high school was an uphill climb of 3' over 1390' to school, 3' downhill on the way home.

Last 2 years of high school rode with friends.

I don't remember daylight saving time having much of an effect on walking to school. But it was always dark walking home after basketball practice in the winter.

[ERD50]

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Originally Posted by Chuckanut Quote: Originally Posted by ERD50 View Post And if we really need to address kids walking to school or the bus stop, how about the local municipality decide to start school an hour later? It makes more sense to adjust where required, than to throw everyone's common measurement off in a "one size fits all" fashion. But, that would probably throw off things for working parents. School starting times have to take into account such things. That is why older kids get our earlier than younger ones, so the 15 year old can supervise the 9 year old in the afternoon before mom and/or dad gets home. Starting and stopping times are far more divisive than people think. Don't get me started on year around school. That discussion can bet nasty very fast. Sorry. I have no time to explain this more. I am busy today sewing. I cut 6 inches off the top of my blanket and will sow it onto the bottom today so as to make the blanket long enough to completely cover me at night.

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Originally Posted by JoeWras That's what I'm talking about with regard to blue collar workers too. Everything is connected. When the sun is coming up at 8:30, and schools adjust their time, well, then lunch and dinner need to be adjusted, and so on, and so on. There was a reason DST came about. It was from a time when nobody sat at a computer and worked from home. WFH is great, but those in the WFH are creating a bubble from the rest of the world that needs to get out in the world and -- you know -- work.

OK, if that is a real concern, I think it would make far more sense for a municipality to declare "winter business hours". All government offices would publish business hours that are one hour later than the rest of the year. Businesses would be encouraged to do the same, to accommodate parents of school age children and/or family members who are government employees. Everyone publishes their hours on a web site now, so it's easy to know.

That's not radical - almost every business has different hours on the weekends/holidays, not that different, just deal with it.

Seems much simpler than forcing an artificial change of what a clock reports for everybody 2x a year.

It would make life a lot simpler for programmers - if I'm writing a program to monitor how long my sump pump runs, what happens if it starts 10 seconds before the clocks advance an hour? Do I end up reporting that it ran for over an hour? Sure, there are ways to deal with that by just using seconds since the Epoch, but it is still fuzzy when you try to report in "human time" - set the clock back and I have an hour that appears twice in the same day - I could have a single pump running simultaneously, it's like a time-travel paradox.

-ERD50

[Gumby]

I would tolerate daylight saving time if we could be in the Atlantic Time Zone.

[JoeWras]

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Originally Posted by ExFlyBoy5 Forget that. How about we stop the ridiculous pricing of gasoline? There is absolutely no good reason to be priced this way... $3.999

Worse yet, there is worldwide agreement on this stupid practice.

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Originally Posted by Time2 It would be good for me! I live 0.5* on the West side of a timeline. That's a difference of 2 minutes on the sunset. But, I'm an hour behind the other side of the timeline. So it gets dark 58 minutes earlier than if I lived 29 miles East.

For those wanting to enjoy the benefit Time2 mentions, move to Chicago.

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Originally Posted by Music Lover I've lived in a winter climate my entire life and unless there was freezing rain never once has ice reformed on a car window after scraping it off.

You live in "the praries" where it is generally drier. Those on the Atlantic coast get the ocean moisture which makes it more probable for a re-frost.