DST – and the transition to/from – is utter hell, especially for the animals/kids/other commuters in our lives that can’t cope with the transition. Eliminate two weeks of hangry children, neglected cats/dogs, and bleary-eyed drivers? Yes, please.
For two years, I lived in a state that did not “do” DST, and it was heaven. We didn’t “miss” the sun at all. It was right where it was supposed to be, at the proper time of day.
I think humans are pretty adept at coping with the gradual seasonal light changes. It’s the abrupt jump from one to the other (and back) that’s supremely unpleasant.
One thing to remember is in large cities there are actually two shifts. Construction jobs normally start at 7 AM and have us finish up at 3:30 PM. This keeps a fairly large percentage of trucks and workers off the roads when 9-5 ers are commuting in and out. If they did not have Daylight Savings Time it would be much too dark to start construction jobs at 7 AM in the winter months. They would probably then move these jobs to a 8 AM start time making rush hour traffic all that much worse. As it is now it still is fairly dark at 7 AM in late December and early January. Construction site are dangerous enough in good light, but they are much more dangerous in the dark.
@Ratel, It’s not about changing time on VHS twice a year, and what do you mean real jobs? Or am I missing a /sarcasm flag?
I’m fortunate to be able to shift my normal working hours to 5:45 to 2:30 because I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. I’m far more effective when I have plenty of sunlight in the afternoon. A pre-sunrise morning commute doesn’t bother me.
I’ve long said, we should “Save Daylight” during the winter, in summer we have daylight to squander.
I always thought one of the problems in making DST year round was it was too dark for kids to get to school safely. My kid’s bus comes at 6:50 which even on standard time is pushing it AFA sunrise at Equinox +/- 2 weeks.
I would tell you some horror stories about DST handling(and lack thereof) in legacy IT systems; but I’m just going to give you a thousand-yard stare and have another drink.
How do the Chinese cope with all the problems mentioned here? Surely most of them are equally applicable to having a single time zone stretching across 5000 km.
I’m all for dumping DST, but I’d caution against overselling the ““noon” should mean the time when the sun is at its highest point” because that isn’t completely true for anything other than Local Apparent Time. The height of the sun at noon depends on how far East or West you are of the center of the time zone, and on the Equation of Time, which is the difference between Mean Time and Apparent Time.
But most people’s schedules are strongly tied to the clock. Schools, Employers, and Breakfast Restaurants won’t opt in to just shifting schedules to be an hour earlier.
The level of effect depends on which side of your relative time zone you live in. Why not eliminate time zones all together? Then we can all start trying to remember at what time each city starts business or school, rather than a simple time zone-based difference.
Some people benefit by early sunrise, some by later sunset… feckin’ deal.
No one’s stopping you from calling “noon” exactly that.
You’ll just have to accept that “noon” is sometime around 1:00 PM in the summer.
But that’s fine: unless you want to abolish time zones, depending on where you are you always have to accept that “noon” is probably not exactly 12:00, all year round.
