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EU Polls The Public About Abandoning Daylight Savings Time (europa.eu)
"Following a number of requests from citizens, from the European Parliament, and from certain EU Member States, the Commission has decided to investigate the functioning of the current EU summertime arrangements and to assess whether or not they should be changed."
The EU has launched an official "online consultation" seeking input from the public. Long-time Slashdot reader mitch0 writes: The consultation was started after some member states expressed the opinion that the daylight saving time should be abolished within the EU. There were some local motions in member countries as well, but these cannot really proceed without full coordination with all member states.
So far it seems that most of those wanting to end the daylight-saving change would stick to summer time all-year round, but the questionnaire has a specific question about this issue so a more representative result is expected after the survey is closed in the middle of August...
Citizens can express their opinion about the summer time change by filling out a short online survey.
The EU has launched an official "online consultation" seeking input from the public. Long-time Slashdot reader mitch0 writes: The consultation was started after some member states expressed the opinion that the daylight saving time should be abolished within the EU. There were some local motions in member countries as well, but these cannot really proceed without full coordination with all member states.
So far it seems that most of those wanting to end the daylight-saving change would stick to summer time all-year round, but the questionnaire has a specific question about this issue so a more representative result is expected after the survey is closed in the middle of August...
Citizens can express their opinion about the summer time change by filling out a short online survey.
Daylight Saving Time is a pain in the butt. There is no rational reason why we have to fool around with our clocks twice a year.
I'd imagine there's going to be quite a marked geographic divide on this. Southern Europe probably DGAF as they don't get the sort of seasonal variation in daylight hours you get in the north, and the very far north of Europe they have such extremes of variation in daylight hours that fudging the clocks by an hour makes no real difference. However there's going to be a band across the middle (UK, France, Germany, etc) where there exists the right balance between having a problem, and being able to somewhat remedy it by moving your clocks for a few months.
The problem of course is that whatever is decided is going to be foist onto everyone regardless of need or want, because that's how the EU rolls
So far it seems that most of those wanting to end the daylight-saving change would stick to summer time all-year round
This has already been tried several times over the years and always with the same result: People discover that they don't like it being dark longer in the morning during the winter.
Here's a better idea. Why don't we pass a law requiring the earth to change its orbit, so that we always have the same number of hours of daylight year round.
That makes just as much sense as the constant bitching and complaining about daylight saving time.
they should just split the difference by moving the clocks back 30 minutes and abolish daylight savings time, the USA should too
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I know DST is generally stupid and bad, but that's the wrong time to end. DST is the good time where you get home from work and can still actually see the sun. Humans still primarily do stuff in the daytime.
Let's make everything DST. Abandon "StandardTime" or whatever it is called in the sucky months.
I wish they were polling and seriously considering it here, in the USA. I 100% want to abandon time changing and stay on DTS (summer time) year-round. Almost everyone I know wants it, too. It is ridiculous that we don't just act and do it.
Really make the EU return to its origins.
Decimal time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
When they started the questionnaire their servers where quickly hammered, and not reachable anymore. Probably says a thing or two, ...
And unfortunately as much as I love these guys,....
I would say, almost every American I've encountered that complains about dst, has actually been complaining about normal time.
I don't know about anyone else, but what I object to the most is the switch.
Pick one – either stay on Standard Time, or switch to Daylight "Savings" Time – and stay on it. Forever.
This has already been tried several times over the years and always with the same result: People discover that they don't like it being dark longer in the morning during the winter.
...which you can also compensate by changing working hours.
And several business have different opening hours during the seasons anyway (e.g.: due to reduced work force due to vacations in summer).
So giving summer-specific opening hours that also happen to take into account the variation of sun time isn't that far fetched.
(E.g.: public transport has different time tables at different time of the year, public services tend to have reduced opening hours due to lots of them going into vacations, hospitals emergencies work in shifts around the clock anyway, movie schedule change each week with new release, work-from-home and artists put their own work hours anyway, university research team tend to have the most WTF work hours specially for PhD students (except for that guy who has Eukaryotik cell cultures. He needs to feed them every 32 hours no matter how out of sync it gets with any rational work schedule), etc. Shops are about the only things which seem to open at a constant timetable.)
It used to make sense to shift clocks back in the industrial era when most of the activities were dictated by fixed time schedules and nearly everybody needed to be in sync (factory working ours).
Nowadays, in our mostly service-sector-based type of work, you need to check (e.g.: online on your smartphone) the opening hours and time schedule for probably around 7 out of 10 business. Supressing DST will simply make you check for the last remaining 3 too, instead of relying on fixed clock times.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Just set the time half way between summer and winter and leave it there like Sri Lanka.
No more need for time zones, or the dreaded DST, at all! One time zone to rule them all!
You're trying to be funny but actually in China this is exactly what they do. The whole country is on Beijing Time despite being what would normally be a 4 time zone wide country. And they don't bother with DST either.
Whatever it is now - just leave it alone, I'll adjust to it, permanently.
individually have different start times. 6 AM starts exist and 7 AM is reasonably common.
Try bringing the idea up at work.
... not saving s .
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Buy shit made after Y2K.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
... will it be a hard DSTXIT?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Didn't they already do that?
Or is it just the FIA
I have noticed that all of the European Formula 1 races this season start at 8am Central Daylight Time or later, previously they started at 7am CDT
which is goof for me since I work every other weekend until 7am
Only the White Man would cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it on the bottom, and proclaim he had a longer blanket.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
A lot of the western European countries (e.g. Spain, France) should abandon Central European Time (CET) of any type.
It doesn't make any sense since since they're in western and not central Europe.
That's one reason people eat so late in Spain, as they're to the west of England.
Instead they should use WET (Western European Time), i.e. essentially follow the UK....
I am an extreme night owl by nature. It's something generic according to the latest research. I try my best to fit in with "normal" people's schedule, and get by OK for most part with a painstakingly maintained bedtime. But twice a year, the time switch throws me off for weeks at a time. It has been a struggle of a lifetime.
If there is one textbook example of the tyranny of the majority, this is it. We need to get rid of it in the states too.
They tried DST for a few years, found no benefit, and promptly ended it. Something to be said about an authoritarian style government.
The EU has Public Consultations regularly, even if they only occasionally get Slashdot coverage. There are 21 open consultations this very moment, if you feel that you have something to offer.
As for other matters... well, you're asked to select your representatives every 5 years for the EU Parliament and (I suspect) every 4 years for your national assembly and thus also the EU Council of Ministers. You can reach out to your representatives at any time, or work to replace them at the next election. And if you have a problem with the fact that idiots and criminals keep getting elected (and don't we all?), I'm afraid the only real solution is to convince your fellow EU citizens to vote for someone else. Personally I've put my vote behind the European United Left for EU parliament, along with supporting similar reform parties nationally, but you can pick your own poison. ;-)
You are an excellent candidate for my sig.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
No, and that's why they're doing a public consultation rather than just telling everyone what's best! I know you Americans love to criticise the EU, but you really should educate yourself on how it works first.
That article has several logical flaws. While there may be benefits to *being on* DST, there are also significant drawbacks to *switching* to and from DST, as mentioned above. The article never admits those, or compares their relative risks.
Assuming it's true that changing clocks twice a year helps match "our modern clockwork-driven world adjust to our ancestral sleep and wake patterns", then wouldn't changing clocks 4 times a year be even better? Or every month? Why not every day? And instead of doing it per-state/country, why not adjust it exactly as optimal per latitude? We've got computers and satellites now.
If you think that the cost of changing clocks is zero, then you should want to change them every day. If you admit that changing clocks has a nonzero cost, then you need to measure and compare the costs and benefits. The current implementation of DST is the worst of both worlds. It's like saying that 60mph is too fast for city driving, therefore everyone exiting the freeway should slam on the brakes as hard as possible. Maybe the premise is true, but this solution is terrible.
> Well, it’s pretty simple: wake up with the sun like our ancestors did.
Great idea, but that's not what DST is. If you're using a daylight alarm clock (or actual daylight), DST is irrelevant at best.
> Congratulations; you just reinvented DST...poorly. Now instead of turning the clock back or forward, you have to add or subtract to the operating hours of every place you do business with twice a year.
I already have to do plenty of mental arithmetic with clocks every year. The public clocks in every transit station in my city don't get set for DST for about a month after each DST change. Half the stores in my city have separate "winter hours" and "summer hours", because even DST isn't good enough for them. Is your goal to stop people from needing to add/subtract times? DST is worse at that, too.
In the economically significant parts of the EU in winter the sun comes up after 09:00 and sets before 17:00.
Already virtually everyone goes to work or school and returns in the dark, making the sun come up after 10:00 is just not acceptable.
This is not how DST works.
DST isn't active in the winter to begin with.
If the sun is up between 09:00 and 17:00, that is still going to be 09:00 and 17:00 wether DST exists or not.
DST is active in summer.
The same place would have sun in summer between 05:00 and 21:00 in the summer.
DST would shift by (+1) in the summer, corresponding to 06:00 and 22:00.
So somebody working 09:00 to 17:00, will only start working 3 hours after the sun rise, and will still get 5 hours of sun after the end of work ( <- that's where the more light happens), and could spend these 5 hours outside, e.g.: spending deutschmarks at the beer garten ( <- which was one of the *economic* reasons to introduce DST in the industrial age).
My long argument is that the exact same thing is functionally achieved, instead of applying DST in the summer, to shift working hours to 08:00 to 16:00 (Still the same distribution of light before / after work). The worker will still have 5 hours to spend their Euros in hipster Cafés.
It would not have made sens back in the industrial era (every single place setting completely different random hours! chaos !)
But today, when 7 out 10 business have varying work hours anyway, asking the last three to shift hours instead of shifting clocks isn't far fetched.
--
Now to go back to parent poster : what the DST achieves *extremely crudely* is having the start of the work day follow the start of the light.
e.g.: If you kept the start of the work day at 08.00 (working hours or DST or whatever), in the winter you would have to start working a whole 1 hour before the sunrise, given your example.
Suppressing DST without any other adjustement would make you lose this "work day *(very) approximater* follows light".
I'm simply arguing that adjusting working hours also enables you to follow light, and nowadays, you need to check opening hours for lots of services you're contacting/using/visiting anyway.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
People hate UTC because then they would have to track what time for instance breakfast is when going somewhere else. My response to that..is that the time is different because PEOPLE EAT AT A DIFFERENT TIME THAN WHERE YOU ARE FROM!
In northern parts of Europe such as Finland, DST is a 2 hour jump.
Some southern countries don't bother with it at all.
It's more like shifting the thing so your feet aren't cold and it doesn't suffocate you, but thatnks for playing.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Better yet, move the clocks forward a other hour from DST so that solar noon and clock noon line up. After that, we can adjust it every five years or so to keep the Noons lined up, which is likely to be only @ 5 min. The days will grow and shrink and everything is fine.
Then we'll have everyone saying how stupid it is to have ever changed it in the first place. Bring it back.
Please tell me there aren't still people stupid enough to believe this is what DST is for... [keeps scrolling down] [facepalm]
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.