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Proof Daylight Saving Time Is Dumb, Dangerous, and Costly (bloomberg.com)

From a report on Bloomberg: The case for daylight saving time has been shaky for a while. The biannual time change was originally implemented to save energy. Yet dozens of studies around the world have found that changing the clocks has either minuscule or non-existent effects on energy use. [...] The latest research suggests the time change can be harmful to our health and cost us money. The suffering of the spring time change begins with the loss of an hour of sleep. That might not seem like a big deal, but researchers have found it can be dangerous to mess with sleep schedules. Car accidents, strokes, and heart attacks spike in the days after the March time change. It turns out that judges, sleep deprived by daylight saving, impose harsher sentences. [...] Some of the last defenders of daylight saving time have been a cluster of business groups who assume the change helps stimulate consumer spending. That's not true either, according to recent analysis of 380 million bank and credit-card transactions by the JPMorgan Chase Institute.

13 of 352 comments (clear)

  1. We've known this for years by Virtucon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We've known for a long time, at least in my recollection since the '70s, that daylight savings time didn't do much other than cause problems. Since our Nation really isn't based on agricultural production anymore maybe it's time we just give it up. I'm sure the farmers, chickens and local schools can get it sorted out okay.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    1. Re:We've known this for years by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Funny

      We've known for a long time, at least in my recollection since the '70s, that daylight savings time didn't do much other than cause problems. Since our Nation really isn't based on agricultural production anymore maybe it's time we just give it up. I'm sure the farmers, chickens and local schools can get it sorted out okay.

      It's another case of Government over-reach. No one tells me what to do. We have the right to make it whatever time we want it to be.

      I use the metric minute, hours and days, but in every other letter of the greek alphabet.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    2. Re:We've known this for years by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Informative

      When I grew up, my teachers blamed the farmers for DST too. So imagine my surprise when I found out they're actually among the loudest opponents of DST - they generally oppose it because their work is synchronized to daylight hours, and DST means the entire world moves one hour out and expects deliveries, staffing, etc, an hour earlier for half the year.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    3. Re:We've known this for years by rmdingler · · Score: 5, Funny

      A group of scientists placed five monkeys in a cage, and in the middle, a ladder with bananas on top. Every time a monkey went up the ladder, the scientists soaked the rest of the monkeys with cold water. After a while, every time a monkey would start up the ladder, the others would pull it down and beat it up. After a time, no monkey would dare try climbing the ladder, no matter how great the temptation. The scientists then decided to replace one of the monkeys. The first thing this new monkey did was start to climb the ladder. Immediately, the others pulled him down and beat him up. After several beatings, the new monkey learned never to go up the ladder, even though there was no evident reason not to, aside from the beatinThe second monkey was substituted and the same occurred. The first monkey participated in the beating of the second monkey. A third monkey was changed and the same was repeated. The fourth monkey was changed, resulting in the same, before the fifth was finally replaced as well. What was left was a group of five monkeys that – without ever having received a cold shower – continued to beat up any monkey who attempted to climb the ladder. If it was possible to ask the monkeys why they beat up on all those who attempted to climb the ladder, their most likely answer would be “I don’t know. It’s just how things are done around here.” Does that sound at all familiar?

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    4. Re: We've known this for years by corychristison · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I commented the below comment in the last /. post about DST:

      As someone even more North than you (Canadian Prairies), it doesn't make any sense... sun is still down when most people go to work, and sun goes back down again before most people are done work.

      Shifting it an hour really has no benefit when you only get 7 hours of daylight in the winter.

      In the Summer it's opposite. Sun comes up between 5-6 am, sets around 10pm.

      With that said, where I live, we don't have DST and I'm damn glad we don't.

      It's largely a regional thing, based on where you are geographically. This is why generalized discussions about DST don't make sense. Everyone lives in different area's both on the horizontal and vertical axis.

      In other words, your experience is not my experience. How about we quit arguing about it and get on with our lives?

    5. Re:We've known this for years by religionofpeas · · Score: 5, Funny

      DST is useful if you give a fuck about the sun. Guess what. I don't.

      In a recent review of the Sun, it only got one star.

    6. Re: We've known this for years by chipschap · · Score: 5, Funny

      You remind me of what was once said in the North Dakota state legislature, by one of the brilliant state representatives, when they were considering (but ultimately rejected) the idea of opting out of DST: "I don't know. My garden needs that extra hour of daylight."

  2. National DST Day by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why not just make the Monday after DST time change a national holiday? Problem solved.

    Me, I like Daylight Savings Time, because it will allow me to sit out on the porch in May listening to the Blackhawks game and still have enough light to read. And in the Winter it would suck having to go to work in the morning in the pitch dark.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  3. Re:Proof?!?! First-world problems.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm not going to dispute that this is a really shitty submission, and that Slashdot could do better.

    What I will dispute, however, is that the problems that people experience in civilized nations are somehow less important than the problems people experience in less civilized nations.

    People in civilized nations have to deal with all of the same problems that less civilized nations have to deal with. We still have to eat food and drink water. We still have to provide ourselves with shelter. We still need clothing. We still need to avoid injury and death.

    In fact, it's often much harder for people living in the most developed countries to do such things. Most of the most civilized nations are in areas with very inhospitable conditions, such as long and harsh winters, or short crop growing seasons. It's not like, say, Africa or the Caribbean, where the climate is such that shelter, clothing, and even agriculture almost become non-issues.

    Belittling "first-world problems" is silly, because they not only encompass the problem at hand, but they also encompass all of the problems that less civilized nations need to deal with, too.

    By their very nature, "first-world problems" are inherently more severe than "non-first-world problems".

    If something is deemed to be a "first-world problem", then it's a very significant problem. Just because civilized nations have come up with ways of dealing with the foundational problems doesn't mean that the higher-level problems are less problematic. It's actually quite the opposite.

  4. Proof was not given... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Proof Daylight Saving Time Is Dumb, Dangerous, and Costly

    A correlation was cited, but causation was not proven. There are more pedestrian accidents between noon and 1pm. But that does not mean that lunch hour needs to be eliminated.

    .
    Nice try. Wanna play again?

    1. Re:Proof was not given... by religionofpeas · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A correlation was cited, but causation was not proven.

      DST happens on different dates every year, so if there's a clear correlation, it's as good as a proof for causation, because there's nothing else that happens on those days.

    2. Re:Proof was not given... by religionofpeas · · Score: 4, Informative

      Different days of the month, but not different weekdays. Nice try. Wanna play again?

      Sure, I'll play again.

      Switching over to daylight saving time, and losing one hour of sleep, raised the risk of having a heart attack the following Monday by 25 percent, compared to other Mondays during the year, according to a new U.S. study released on Saturday.

  5. Re:Excellent by religionofpeas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Someone who wants to accurately analyze time-based data and insists on local time is an idiot

    So, when my travel app says I need to take the 1:30 am train, I'm an idiot for not using GMT or Unix timestamps ?