Map: The states in favor of daylight saving time all year long

The problem with permanent DST in northern states is that it means for much of winter the morning commute is in darkness. Yes, it means more light during the evening commute, but the morning commute needs light more than does the evening commute.<p>That&#x27;s because generally road conditions are more likely to be worse in the morning than in the evening. It&#x27;s generally colder in the mornings meaning more chances of ice on the roads. There&#x27;s also more likely to be snow on the roads--by the evening you&#x27;ve had a day&#x27;s traffic helping clear the roads.<p>Also in the morning you&#x27;ve got significant overlap between the morning adult commute and children walking or biking to school, so by making the morning commute happen in darkness you are combining the time when road conditions are worst, the time when you&#x27;ve got the most pedestrians and cyclists, and the time you&#x27;ve got the worst lighting.<p>Schools generally get out well before the adult evening commute starts, so if that has to take place in the dark at least you don&#x27;t have nearly as many pedestrians and cyclists to deal with.

The US actually did experiment with year-round DST during the oil embargo in the 70s. Popular support for year-round DST cratered when people actually experienced what DST is like in winter. I fully expect the same thing to open nowadays if permanent DST ever becomes a thing... DST in winter just isn&#x27;t fun.

Perhaps we should modify our schedules rather than altering the time the clock shows. The time doesn’t really change.<p>We should abolish savings time and stick to standard time year round.<p>The real arguments for savings time are for economic (ie consumption) reasons. More daylight later means more spending after work.<p>If you look at who supports and lobbies for savings time it should be clear who the enemy is.

Just eliminate DST. Are we in such post-truth era that we&#x27;ll even lie to ourselves about the time? Tell ourselves it&#x27;s an hour later when we know it&#x27;s not, as if we embrace lies and lying so readily? Why add a layer of complexity; just make the time reflect the position of the Sun, and adjust your schedule as desired.<p>I know we&#x27;ve used DST for a long time, but at least it was a special (albiet annual) thing, not a permanent state.

When I worked an office IT job, for a few years, I asked my boss if I could come in an hour early in the winter. In actual practice, I kept my watch on DST and woke up and commuted to work at the same time relative to the Sun. I watched my co-workers struggle for a week adjusting their bodies to their time change. I had no time change to deal with. I got to study (skills upgrade) in the quiet before anyone else came to work, and I got to leave an hour early every day compared to the others. I drove home in the daylight. Truly, there were no downsides for me.<p>Permanent daylight savings time---I recommend practicing it even when the society around you does not.

I&#x27;m glad to see DST is winning. I know it depends a lot on where you live, but living in NYC it feels absolutely crushing to suddenly lose afternoons to the darkness just as the winter weather is emerging. It&#x27;s like a sick joke.<p>As for circadian rhythms, I&#x27;m sure there are many benefits to aligning our entire livelihoods to the annual fluctuations of the sun&#x27;s rise and fall, but in practice everyone I know molds their schedule around their jobs, families and interests, not the sunrise.

Am I missing something or are discussions around DST frequently entirely missing the point? It exists because our work schedules are completely inflexible, so no matter whether you do permanent or not you&#x27;re fundamentally running into issues that work start and end times are fixed, so it&#x27;ll always be trading off against something. The real solution is instead to do something about our fixed schedules to make them more flexible.<p>Am I wrong (genuinely I may just be missing something here)?

My idea:<p>First, eliminate DST completely. The time should reflect the position of the Sun, and forget the complexity and IMHO bizarre self-delusion, a bad habit.<p>Second, use a time half-way between Mountain and Central Time (i.e., on the half-hour), and create a North American Time. Give the entire US a single time zone. Imagine all the headaches simplified away for coordinating; communicating; scheduling; conceptualizing all time across current time zones, like the duration of your plane flight, etc. etc. -- all that conversion and complexity will vanish. &#x27;I&#x27;ll call at 4&#x27; means something crystal clear; if you&#x27;re in Denver, &#x27;be at the SF office for the 5pm meeting&#x27; is transparently comprehendable - you know how long your day will be, how long you have to get there.<p>Yes, people in NY will have sunny early mornings - they like to get up early and can enjoy the more city lights. People in LA will have beautiful late sunsets - they can have a late dinner and watch it set even in December. (Yes, I&#x27;m snidely dismissing their concerns; I&#x27;m having some fun with it.) It&#x27;s only half an hour worse than prior distortions.<p>Best if Canada and Mexico will join in - notice I called it <i>North American Time</i>. The line of current the Central-Mountain time zone border goes right through the center of Mexico; it might work very well there (but someone from Mexico will know more). The challenge is outlying lands, such as New Foundland, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii. They may prefer special time zones because of the larger distortions. Nothing is perfect.<p>China, which is very roughly the same distance east-west as the US, has one time zone. Where is it accurate - central China or Beijing? And how has it worked out?<p>(Or use Mountain or Central Time, if the half-hour will cause too many problems.)

It is a way to pretend to do something without doing it and thus point fingers. If politicians really wanted to do something standard time year round is legal and could be done anytime. But daylight savings time year round isn&#x27;t legal so they pass that so they don&#x27;t have to stand for anything.

I live in East Tennessee, where a permanent DST situation would be the worst case for us, but are seat of government is in Central Time.

DST is torture for night owls.

So the study of how light and biology interact is called chronobiology:<p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Chronobiology" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Chronobiology</a><p>AFAICT, all national (US, CA) and international (EU) chronobiology societies, as well as many sleep researchers, state that from <i>a health perspective</i>, we should (a) get rid of the twice-yearly DST switching, and (b) stay on Standard (&quot;winter&quot;) Time year-round.<p>&gt; <i>As experts in biological clocks and sleep, we have been following the initiatives of the European Commission and California Proposition 7 to abandon the annual clock-time changes in spring and autumn. Although we recognize that there are advantages&#x2F;disadvantages associated with any choice, we emphasize that the scientific evidence presently available indicates that installing perennial Standard Time (ST, or ‘wintertime’) is the best and safest option for public health. The negative effects of maintaining Daylight Saving Time (DST) will be higher.</i><p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;srbr.org&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2018&#x2F;10&#x2F;SRBR-Statement-on-DST.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;srbr.org&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2018&#x2F;10&#x2F;SRBR-Statement-o...</a><p>&gt; <i>The Canadian Society for Chronobiology is advocating for the elimination of twice-yearly time changes. These changes, particularly in the spring, are not only inconvenient and socially disruptive, but also are responsible for short-term negative impacts such as increases in acute health events and accidents. In place of the time changes, we advocate for year-round Standard Time (ST, winter time) rather than Daylight Saving Time (DST, summer time). ST puts the social clock closer to our intrinsic body clock, our circadian rhythm, which is set by the dawn. DST moves dawn later, and creates social jet-lag due to the mismatch between our biological drive to wake up near dawn and the social demands for us to stay up later. Year-round DST is predicted to increase rates of chronic diseases, decrease economic performance, and increase inequities in society. Putative advantages of year-round DST, such as energy savings and benefits for farmers, are not supported by evidence. Previous experiments with year-round DST have proven to be unpopular. Therefore, year-round ST should be adopted as a public health measure.</i><p>* <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.chronobiocanada.com&#x2F;official-statements" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.chronobiocanada.com&#x2F;official-statements</a><p>&gt; <i>Daylight saving time (DST) refers to the practice of advancing clock time by 1 h each spring, with a return (setting back) to standard time (ST) each fall. Numerous sleep and circadian societies other than the Sleep Research Society have published statements in support of permanent ST, and permanent ST has also received support from multiple medical societies and organizations. This perspective dis- cusses the positive and negative health and economic consequences of permanent DST, permanent ST, and maintaining the status quo (DST for part of the year). After a thorough review of the existing literature, the SRS advocates the adoption of permanent ST.</i><p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sleepresearchsociety.org&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;zsac236.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sleepresearchsociety.org&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;...</a><p>&gt; […] <i>Although chronic effects of remaining in daylight saving time year-round have not been well studied, daylight saving time is less aligned with human circadian biology—which, due to the impacts of the delayed natural light&#x2F;dark cycle on human activity, could result in circadian misalignment, which has been associated in some studies with increased cardiovascular disease risk, metabolic syndrome and other health risks. It is, therefore, the position of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine that these seasonal time changes should be abolished in favor of a fixed, national, year-round standard time.</i><p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jcsm.aasm.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;10.5664&#x2F;jcsm.8780" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jcsm.aasm.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;10.5664&#x2F;jcsm.8780</a><p>And this does take into account different chronotypes (e.g., &quot;night owls&quot;):<p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.frontiersin.org&#x2F;articles&#x2F;10.3389&#x2F;fphys.2019.00944&#x2F;full" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.frontiersin.org&#x2F;articles&#x2F;10.3389&#x2F;fphys.2019.0094...</a><p>Of course a lot of the general public seems to lean towards year-round DST (e.g., &quot;so I can do stuff after work&quot;):<p>&gt; <i>The chronobiology community advocates ending the biannual practice in many countries of adjusting their clocks to observe Daylight Saving Time (DST). Many governments are actively considering abandoning this practice. While sleep and circadian experts advocate the adoption of year-round standard time, most jurisdictions are instead considering permanent DST. In guiding advocacy, it is useful to understand the factors that lead governments and citizens to prefer the various options.</i> […]<p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;35382618&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;35382618&#x2F;</a>

Why not meet in the middle?

This is backwards. In the age of pervasive digital assistants, there is no reason not to have two dimensional time zones (perhaps state level) where seven a.m. is sunrise every single day. That’s how humans evolved. To rise with the sun. Waking up with the sun in a different spot in the sky every day is disruptive to sleep cycles. This can be accomplished by skewing the time every day at 3 am for a few dozen seconds. Zoom can take care of aligning video conferences to UTC slots.