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California Voters Embrace Year-Round Daylight-Saving Time (sfchronicle.com)
Californians warmed to the idea of year-round daylight-saving time, approving an initiative that would urge state lawmakers to junk the annual springing forward and falling back. From a report: With 43 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday night, Proposition 7 was leading 61 percent to 39 percent. It's a long way from here to year-round daylight-saving time. First, the Legislature would have to approve it by a two-thirds vote. Then Congress would have to allow California to deviate from standard time when most of the rest of the nation shifts to it.
What they are saying is instead of going with the natural time (noon is midday, and midnight is... well, midnight), they want to keep the shifted time where we get up an hour earlier, so that we have more daylight later in the day after work.
It's interesting because two issues are being convoluted. One is having to change times twice a year, and the other is it getting dark earlier than people want. The former is a pain in the butt and disruptive, the latter is natural.
The "right" way to do it is do away with time changes and DST, and simply move schedules an hour earlier. School starts an hour earlier, work starts an hour earlier, etc. But apparently this is psychologically too difficult to embrace so instead we'll just pretend 8 PM is 9 PM, and call "6 AM" "7 AM", so we don't think we are waking up earlier and going to be earlier.
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As someone who lives in Vancouver, BC, I’m all for sticking with DST year ‘round. While it means that the morning commute will be dark, it’s dark already. Sticking to DST year ‘round means that i’ll At least have some dusk and natural light for the drive home, or even when I’m at home after work.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
No, the headline is sort of wrong. The oficial summary includes "Permits the Legislature by two-thirds vote to make future changes to California’s daylight saving time period, including for its year-round application, if changes are consistent with federal law." So it could mean that the legislature could change DST to happen on different dates as well.
And I voted against it I think. Permanent DST is stupid, where as permanent abandonment of DST is smarter. I agree that the change in time twice a year is dumb, but permanently being off by an hour and effectively being in a different time zone altogether is dumber. I think it's confusing to people who just want to get rid of the twice a year time change but who don't realize that DST is not the "standard" time.
Overall this proposition will have zero effect because states can't change these rules unilaterally. However, currently states are allowed to choose to not have DST at all, which applies to most of Arizona, and California probably doesn't even need a proposition for that. Hopefully the legislators are smart enough not to push forward with this.
The "right" way to do it is do away with time changes and DST, and simply move schedules an hour earlier. School starts an hour earlier, work starts an hour earlier, etc. But apparently this is psychologically too difficult to embrace
It's more about coordination than psychology. Maybe software developers are used to flexible hours but retail, healthcare, transportation and a lot of other sectors are tied to the clock. What happens if the school changes but work doesn't? What about contracts that specify working hours? Are stores willing to switch if customers split between early and late? What about rules for overtime pay that kick in at night? There's a million little things that make it easier for a majority to change the time zone rather than change everything else and then those who don't like it can try scheduling things an hour later if they can.
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I like to have dinner around 6:30 PM. I could wait until each member of my family happened to be hungry and then feed them individually, but I don't. Because we all know dinner is coming at 6:30, everyone times their earlier meals they're ready to eat at 6:30. This is not natural behavior, but neither is it somehow underhanded. It's simply a logistical convenience made possible by the invention of the clock.
That's pretty much how all non-agrarian work is coordinated: we agree on when we'll show up for work and when we get home.
The purpose of daylight savings was to give people working industrial jobs more daylight leisure time in the summer. Remember, when it was first adopted electric lighting wasn't something those people would have. They could have got the same effect by telling everyone in your society to adjust their schedule twice a year, but the government doesn't regulate the start and end time of work shifts. It *does* regulate the time standard, making that the simplest mechanism for accomplishing this.
Daylight savings never made sense in near-tropical or near-arctic regions. Nor is the case for shifting back and forth between standard and daylight savings compelling in a world of ubiquitous electric lighting. You can either stick with standard time, and lose summer daylight leisure time, or stick with savings time year round, getting ready for work in the winter with the aid of light bulbs.
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And evening commutes will become much, much less hazardous. People can easily use artificial lighting to wake themselves up in the morning for their morning drives. But at the end of a long day, when they get in the car for their evening drives, they're tired, so darkness has a much bigger impact. Thus, I would expect a significantly larger reduction in traffic deaths from moving to year-round DST when compared with moving to year-round ST.
Of course either approach is better than the two days of carnage that we get under the current scheme.
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I’m guessing you don’t live up here. I work a typical white collar, 9-5 job with a relatively short commute (~30 minutes or so).
Right now, for the months of December and January, working that schedule means that I basically never see the sun except through the windows at work (and when I take a walk at lunch). Sunrise at the winter solstice is roughly 8:39am, and sunset is at 16:26. It’s deep into the dark by the time I get home.
Sticking to DST means that the sun rises at 9:39, which means it’s no difference to me since I’m already waking up in the dark, but sunset is at 1726, meaning that I at least get to watch it go down as I drive home, and have some dusk as I’m out and about.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
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Granted, carnage is a bit of an exaggeration to describe it...
There is a measurable change in health related deaths near one solstice. There's is a roughly equivalent and opposite health benefit near the following solstice. A non-trivial number of people die as the result of the one, and aren't there to enjoy the benefit that follows.
Perhaps calling it government mandated human sacrifice would be more appropriate. It's certainly more accurate.
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