Daylight savings time idea

The idea behind Daylight Savings Time is that by turning the clocks ahead an hour we will wake up earlier, after we adjust, relative to the sun. So, we won't need to turn on the lights in the morning, thus making more use of daylight hours. Yes, it does get dark an earlier. However, by then I guess we're tired and not needing of as much light as we do in the morning. Seems like a good idea.

However, we give that up in the fall when we "fall back." I assume we do that when there is so little daylight that we're using all the daylight hours either way.

Here is my suggestion -- We just don't fall back any more. No more adjusting clocks and watches twice a year. Let's have the extra hour of daylight and be done with it. What is the downside?

The question for the poll is what is your opinion of the idea? Multiple votes allowed.

Quote: Wizard

The question for the poll is what is your opinion of the idea? Multiple votes allowed.

This was done in the 70's during
the energy crisis. The biggest
complaint was kids walking and
waiting at school bus stops in
total darkness in Dec and Jan.

Where I live the sun comes up
at about 8am in Dec. If you're
a kid at a bus stop at 7 30,
dawn is starting, there's a dull
light. If it's DST, it's still pitch
dark, it's still night.

There were other problems also,
but that was the major one.

Quote: Wizard

The idea behind Daylight Savings Time ...

The idea behind Standard Time is that you pick a prime meridian, and set noon as the average of times throughout the year when the sun crosses the meridian and reaches its highest point in the sky there. This time is now called "mean time", and if you choose the Greenwich Meridian as your prime meridian, it became Greenwich Mean Time.

Standard time is then defined around the world so that every 360/24=15 degrees of longitude you move by one hour.
New York City is 74.0059° W or close to 75° or 5*15° or 5 hours from Greenwich Time
Chicago is 87.6298° W or close to 90° or 6*15° or 6 hours from Greenwich Time
Denver is 104.9903° W or close to 105° or 7*15° or 7 hours from Greenwich Time
San Francisco is 122.4194° W and
Los Angeles is 118.2437° W or close to 120° or 8*15° or 8 hours from Greenwich Time
Honolulu is 157.8583° W or close to 150° or 10*15° or 10 hours from Greenwich Time
---- HNL is actually slightly closer to 165°, but it is more important to have only 2 hours difference from Western Time (3 hours for DST) . A time delta of 3/4 hours be a big percentage of a work day.

Population:
Eastern: 47.0%
Central: 32.9%
Mountain: 5.4%
Pacific: 14.1%
Alaska and Hawaii: 0.6%

Your proposal to have year round daylight savings time might be better if it applied to the whole country except the Eastern Time Zone. Then 80% of the population of the country would be using the same time and there would only be 2 hours difference between NYC and California.

I would like Michigan to switch to Central time AND permanent DST.

This would put the hours that the sun is up closer to the hours that people are up.

For example, if the sun is at its highest at 2pm, on a day when there are 12 hours of sunlight, the sun would rise at roughly 8am and set at roughly 8pm.

I see two issues. One, as EB mentioned, is about the kids. Despite so many now being picked up in front of the house, Mr and Mrs America are not going to like when they leave in darkness.

Two is what we had in AZ. Out there it is so hot that they do not observe DST, except for the Navajos. Better to let the house cool before bed and better to have the light to start early in the day for those who do not work in A/C all day.

In the end of course time is time. In winter I work dark to dark anyways. I did see the wisdom in the AZ thing though I had to keep my windows covered in foil to keep out the 4:00 AM daylight.

We should all move underground and stop this silly dependence on a nuclear reactor 150 million kilometers away :)

Quote: Evenbob

This was done in the 70's during
the energy crisis. The biggest
complaint was kids walking and
waiting at school bus stops in
total darkness in Dec and Jan.

My original post it seems told only half the story, it seems. According to Wikipedia, the purpose was to lengthen daylight after normal working hours. We would all still get up in daylight but have an extra hour of it after work, thus using less energy.

Come winter, we gave back the extra because it was dark when we got off work either way. I guess all this is coming from a perspective of northern latitudes, like New York.

If we adopt my proposal, there would be no giving the hour back, a kid at a December bus stop at 7:30 AM would have light, like how 8:30 light is now. This is a perfect example in my favor.

Quote: Pacomartin

Your proposal to have year round daylight savings time might be better if it applied to the whole country except the Eastern Time Zone. Then 80% of the population of the country would be using the same time and there would only be 2 hours difference between NYC and California.

Interesting. I can see that some of what I'm trying to achieve could be done by moving the time zone lines.

Quote: Wizard

My original post it seems told only half the story, it seems. According to Wikipedia, the purpose was to lengthen daylight after normal working hours. We would all still get up in daylight but have an extra hour of it after work, thus using less energy.

I think the easiest way to think about it, is standard time right at the longitudes which are multiples of 15 degrees has the center of the day at noon. Now in theory since a perfect time zone is give or take 7.5 degrees, the center of daylight would fall 11:30 to 12:30.

Daylight savings time moves the clock so that center of the day is nominally 1:00 PM. A nominal 10 hour day is 7AM to 5PM on standard time and is 8AM to 6 PM on DST. Or you can think that DST moves you to the east one time zone, so that, for example, central daylight savings time is the same as Eastern standard time.

The kids are a red herring they either walk to school in the dark or walk home in the dark if there are not enough hours of daylight. Kids that take a school bus or public bus to/from school are outside for more hours.