I detest DST with a passion, but the main reason is changing the clocks back and forth. I seem to have too many of them.

DST allows us to play golf an extra hour after work. This writer is seriously mistaken.

A quick google search turns up the following:
Like Daylight Savings Time? Hate it? Thank Ed Markey
Union-News & Sunday Republican·2 days ago
Like Daylight Savings Time? Hate it? Thank U.S. Rep. Edward
Markey. That’s the message of a press release sent out
Friday from the office of the Massachusetts Democrat and
Senate candidate.
Another social engineer from MA!

I seem to remember that we were told that by changing the clocks earlier in the spring and later in the fall we would save the US 100,000 barrels of oil per day. I don´t know if those numbers hold up today. May be someone might have more information to either back up those numbers or tell us it´s a joke.

I don´t see what the big deal is. An extra hour of daylight for people who are holed up in offices all day is a good thing.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/eliminate-bi-annual-time-change-caused-daylight-savings-time/ShChxpKh

I hate in the morning for the first month, but I love having enough light when i get home to grill a steak om the deck in the sunlight. If we are goin the quit this crazy two step, then quit it in the DST mode. The last thing I want to fact is a July where sunrise occurs at 4:15 am. Ugh!

Seems to be a zero sum game.

Why don´t we stay on DST for the year around?

I suggest a compromise - just change everything by a half hour and leave it that way!
s/

BTW the time zone in Newfoundland used to be 1/2 hour different. We called it Newfie time (rhymes with goofy time)

Seems that some states don´t participate in the fiasco of ´´time bumping,´´ namely Arizona. Anyone know of others? If those can keep from the insanity, why not all the rest?

I don´t like the arbitrary time changes. If DST is so hot keep it year around. It is now 7:26 AM and dark outside. Lights are burning everywhere saving energy of course.

I love DST! Its standard time that I don´t like. December has to be my least favorite month of the year, because I go to work in the dark and come home in the dark. Having the daylight at the end of the day allows me to walk the dog, wash the car, cut the grass, paint the house etc during the week, in the light. Otherwise ALL of the chores have to be done on the weekend.

As for kids going to school in the dark..... we have been doing that for over a hundred years. As A kid I liked DST because it was still light when I got home after school.

I am a software developer (hence the alias). I detest DST due to the incredible inconvenience it causes having to deal with time changes for all timestamped records. This probably seems trivial to those who do not deal with this fact every year, but it adds a measurable amount of cost to all projects which have to account for it. Compared to DST, the Y2K issue was a cake walk.

I love it in the spring! Give me nice, long evenings any day. As someone stated above, for desk jockeys stuck behind a desk all day, it´s great to be able to go home and have some daylight left to enjoy.

This is incredulous. There are people who would actually prefer sunrise at 4:30AM in the summer? So our town pool, which so many adults use after work, would have to close an hour earlier because of darkness? So you couldn´t get that round of golf in? So your kids wouldn´t have an extra hour outside?

What is wrong with you?

I LOVE DST. What´s not to like! I get up when it´s light out and then we have hours in the evening to cook out, go for a walk, or just sit outside and enjoy the evening. I don´t get why anyone wouldn´t like that. I would love it all year!

I have a self-setting clock which I now have to change to DST manually since the dates were changed. I also have to reset it when it makes its automatic change on the original dates. So much for the convenience of self-setting clocks.

Since we´re on DST eight months of the year now, let´s just set it and leave it. It seems we´re heading that way by inches already. One fell swoop and it´s done. Our time settings are arbitrary human constructs as it is. There are some who seem to imply that DST actually "gives" us an extra hour of sun. Oy.

DST allows for an extra hour or more of sunlight, to fry Bill Kristols stupid bald head.

Despite setting my clock forward yesterday, I still managed to oversleep an hour this morning. I don´t mind DST, the prolonged daylight in the evening is very enjoyable. It´s just adjusting to it that bites.

Arizona does not use DST because we have hot summers here.

Why would you want to have an extra day where you come home from the office and have daylight until 9 PM, and an extra hour of 120 degree heat ?

Most people go out in the night during the summertime, or very early in the morning.

It would also cost you more for A/C bills to cool your house with DST.

Just not worth the hassle !!!!!!! Like it like we have it.

Reset all my clocks and watches except for one digital watch. We should stay on this DST all year long. I too enjoy having the extra sunlight in the evening - especially after working all day and the long commute.

I believe the basis for DST started out as an effort to synchronize train schedules and time zones back in the 1800s.

I can never get back to sleep. I thought the law said to change the clocks at 2 am. If this such a good idea leave it year around and don´t make me wake up to change clocks. This is a twice annual reminder of how oppressive government works.

Because I sit at a desk all day I hate DST. I want to go home, eat, relax and wind down with what is left of the day. Now people call and plan and expect you to be out doing all manner of things just because it is light outside. I tell them no thank you. That is what my weekend is for. Otherwise I´d be so burned out from the week I couldn´t enjoy anything on the weekend but sleeping.

It is the changing & switching back & forth of everybody´s & the dairy cows´ circadian cycles that cause the problems. Why do you think so many people are having sleep problems? ´Cause we have cheap light that keeps us up half the night plus toys like these computers to keep sleep at bay. Maybe we should just switch to DST all the time. Or go to work earlier & come home earlier if you want that ´extra´ hour in the evening. But heck if you live in the city - you don´t need that extra hour - the street lights are on all the time & you have to cover your windows with black out curtains to shut light out so we can sleep at night.

What a crying whinie the author is. This is the biggest to do over NOTHING. I would prefer DST year round actually, but frankly I can muddle through with the split system. This piece has no place in Must Reads IMO.

23 please tell me your post is satire....I mean, you don´t really get up at 2am to re set your clocks do you? Then again.....

The corn is starting to come up.
The fish are biting.
The only clock I have says it´s spring time.

Get out of the city while you can.

Then work on getting the city out of you.

(or don´t)

Daylight savings time is a good thing--in the summer! Starting it in March is ridiculous. No one in a northern climate is going to be playing golf later in the afternoon. I am going to go home after work and turn the lights on just like I always do. But now I have my lights on in the morning, too, because I have to get up in the dark! Go back to April to October for daylight saving time. This current system is the Jimmy Carter system. We scrapped it back then and should scrap it now.

If people like having an extra hour of light in the evening, then all schedules should be set back an hour. If you work from 8 to 4 instead of 9 to 5, that´s the same as having daylight savings time. I don´t like DST because it destroys the meaning of clock time. Noon is supposed to be the time when the sun is highest in the sky, but in DST that´s 10. We are out of touch enough with the natural world and DST puts us one step more out of touch.

DST is idiotic yet we just keep doing it. There is no reason why a business or Government office cannot change its hours to suit people.

Thanks, #30, for saving me the keystrokes.

Many years ago (pre-1970), most of Indiana was in the Central time zone due to our proximity to Chicago. I didn´t know about DST back then, all I knew was I hated going to bed on a school night when it was still daylight outside.

In-between moving overseas in 1970 and moving back in ´72, Indiana went to Eastern time and stopped participating in DST. The farmer lobby held sway back then, they wanted the hour of daylight shifted to the early morning so they could work in daylight by 500am. The only noticeable hassle was when our local TV stations had to adjust their late local news from 1000pm to 1100pm and back again to coordinate with their network feeds from New York. Once the technology advanced, the local stations could get their network feeds from the next time zone over and standardize the late local news at 1100pm.

Now, Indiana has been back on DST for at least seven years and I still can´t get used to switching the clock or readjusting to getting up when it´s still dark. Oh well.

//ramble

I vote for DST all year. The benefits are obvious. Other than the stupid changing of the clocks 2wice a year it´s great.

Thank you #23 and #27 for giving me the heartiest laugh I´ve had in ages. You guys/gals should be a comedy tag team.

Much ado about nothing. We have a lot more to be concerned about in this country than an hour change of the clocks.

Arizona is on Pacific Time for eight months of the year now. They have added two months since I was a kid. I don´t know why we don´t just do pst all year round. Nov, Dec, Jan, and Feb are the only months we stay on mst in the entirety.

I have bigger things to worry about, nearly every one beginning with Fauxbama and his regime. I do like the long summer days.

#8 has it right.
Leave us on DST year round. That should shut up this bellyacher.

HATE dst. Hate it.
Its just wrong.

what a bunch of whiners.
I love DST.
I even think there should be a few more during the year, maybe every month.

That DST in the dead of winter won´t work up here in the North country- it´d be dark at 3:30 pm.
Heck with that. Keep changing.
Ben Franklin had a sound idea that holds up well, with few exceptions.

I love DST it gives me more time to work outside.

Put me in the "STOP PLAYING WITH THE FREAKING CLOCKS!" column. Just pick a time and stick with it. Never bought into the energy savings ruse — that can only work for the unemployed.

In Seattle we don´t need the extra hour: we have to wait until 100 pm for our July 4th fireworks. It was just getting light in the morning again and at 7 am I´m back in the dark. Whoopee.

All of you have not focused on the fact that this is one more example of the federal gooberment telling us that we are not smart enough to know when to get out of bed and go to work. What´s wrong with those of you who think that´s a good thing?

We have dolts running the country, over 11% actually unemployed and more underemployed and folks are talking about this...jeesh!

If you live in the desert southwest DST is horrendous. The peak heat 100+ temperatures keep you inside. The late evenings are peak times for breaking records. Night fall is our friend.
We should stay with standard time but what do I know politicians are smarter than me.

DST stays in effect because it provides jobs for govn workers to set and reset clocks. Probably at high 5 figure pay too.....

Even if you through out all of the clocks, the hours of darkness are greater in December than in June and vice versa. DST was created to manage how those extra summers were managed from a "time" perspective. DST and standard time sort of mark the equinoxes, when natural day and night are roughly equal. The time changes are almost symbolic reflections of the gain or loss of day light due to the tilt of the earth´s axis either towards or away from the sun. DST tends to enhance the natural shift to more daylight heading up to June 21, beyond which the duration of day light naturally begins its decline, bottoming out on December 21.

DST is stupid, simple as that. Leave the clocks alone!

You should live in Alaska for a while like I did (4yrs). They do go on DST, so in June, the sun rises between 3:30 and 40 A.M. and sunset is around 11:30 and 120P.M. In between, it doesn´t get dark, just twilight. You can go down to Ship Creek in downtown Anchorage and watch people standing shoulder to shoulder fishing for king salmon (they have a king salmon derby in June) at 1 and 2 A.M. It´s really crazy. And just thing, everything switches in the winter. It´s dark most of the time.

I believe the rail roads were responsible for STANDARD time in the 1880´s. (little or no electricity then)

WW1 was responsible for Daylight Savings Time (1918 in the US).

I suspect more is lost in additional heating than saved in electricity. The heat had to come on at the coldest part of the day to get the house livable when I got up and still had to turn on the lights. Last week the heat came on an hour later and I didn´t need to turn on the lights.

The real problem is it it light later in the summer, postponing hot tub time.

Most of the time I don´t mind it, but when my step-daughters were in school we lived on a country road. That meant that the kids had to stand out in the dark near the road because of our erratic school bus schedule (to make sure they were there in plenty of time). I think the people that make batteries like it - we always change our not-so-old smoke alarm batteries with DST!

Reminds me of the farmer who complained to his congressmen that the extra hour of sunlight was burning up his crops.

We hate DST!!

"In Winter I get up at night
and dress by yellow candlelight.

In Summer quite the other way.
I have to go to bed by day."
Robert Louis Stevenson

It seems this has been a topic of discussion for a few centuries.

We love it and would have it all year round.

I just like to gripe about DST until my body gets used to it, then I am fine. I gripe once again when we fall back, but I do like that extra hour of sleep. DST is a small annoyance nothing like seeing and/or hearing Obama´s voice on TV. Now THAT can ruin a fine day.

Count us with the DST-lovers. Why not have it all year round? It´s the change that annoys people.

Um, #56, Stevenson was referring to the fact that there is more daylight in the summer and less in the winter. In England, extremely so. There is nothing you can do with your clock that will change the tilt of the earth that causes this.

In my previous comment, #30, a typo crept in. Real noontime is 1pm in DST.

I hate DST. Those of you who want to play golf after work can do so most of the summer (except in Alaska, apparently). Otherwise bring a flashlight and leave the rest of us out of it. Feh!

During the height of summer, nightfall is actually a relief for us. Until then the sun blazes bright across the front of our house right before bedtime.

Death to time change, period! Just choose one -- Standard Time, Daylight Savings Time, whatever, and stick with it. None of this switching back and forth. This semi-annual shift of our sleeping, activity, and eating schedules can´t be good for us. At least it takes me a couple of weeks, minimum to adjust.

Trying to feel empathy for the whiners, but, sorry -- Get a Life!

Not the slightest problem switching to DST.
I feel better on it that not on it.

Arizona does not want the extra daylight in the evening because it is way too hot there.
They want the daylight in the morning when there´s a little relief and people can
jog, etc in only 80´s instead of 115F temps.
If you´ve lived there you would know that.
Hawaii does not change, they are way off in
the tropics anyway.

The best solutions would include the following --
automated clocks that change gradually by a minute or so at a time.
Or two or more time changes, so that each change is only 30 or 20 minutes.
Much easier for the gripers to adjust to, but then they´d whine about "too many changes."

Recommmendation regarding winter morning darkness for schoolkids --
We are no longer an agrarian society by a long shot. But we still have an agrarian
school calendar.
Start the school year March First, and end the first semester by end of June.
Take a Summer Break around the Fourth of July. Then start the second semester later in July, and finish it completely right before Thanksgiving. The long break should be in the winter, from T-giving to March 1.
Avoid snow, ice and darkness when possible.

My 2nd home is in Arizona. The main thing I notice is when DST kicks in we are on the same time as the Nevada casinos across the river. No more going to the restaurant an hour too early. :-) It´s interesting living virtually on the Mountain/Pacific line.

When Congress passed the Uniform Time Act in 1966, Arizona tried observing daylight savings for a year and decided to not observe it after much negative reaction. They have never observed daylight savings since. Because of the hot climate, adding an extra hour of daylight would cause more of an energy crunch with AC working longer and harder. Arizona is on Mountain Standard Time (MST) year-round. The only exception in Arizona is the Navajo Nation, in northeastern Arizona, which does observe Daylight Saving Time.

Forgot to add --

DST started in WWI, for the war effort.

There was no national uniformity to it until legislation in the late 1960´s or
early 1970´s.

DST is a silly bureaucrat´s idea of how to screw with us.

It must be eliminated.

Who decided that we need to "spring forward" while it´s still winter?

In the not-so-distant past, the switch happened in April, when the noticeably earlier sunrise made you wake up an hour before the normal time. The switch to DST was no big deal. Now we get to go to work in the dark, gradually start going to work in the light, and then suddenly return to going to work in the dark again. It ain´t natural.

#11...I don´t know where you live but even on standard time it is dark here (KY) until after 7:30 AM. I always wondered what the heck people were talking about when they´d whine about their poor darlings going to school in the dark. Shucks I watch the school busses go by here between 6:30 and 7 AM and it´s dark.

If parents are concerned about their kids walking to school in the dark then why aren´t they just as concerned about their kids running the streets at night after dark?

We should keep DST year round and be done with the clock changing routine. Maybe it will help the over worked #13. (grin)

I´m with #26, et al. I love DST, but what up with all the whining? Pull up your big girl panties and deal with it. We have massively bigger problems than this.

And what, pray tell, would be wrong with abandoning watches and clocks and returning to sundials? Other than having to reset them, of course?

Another feeble attempt by man to fool himself into thinking he has any power over nature.

I love the fact that government can make everyone wealthier by raising the minimum wage. Mandated wealth creation - - that´s the ticket! But why are they only shooting for a minimum wage of $10 per hour - - why not $50 or $100? That way - - we´d all be RICH!

On the same score - - why is the government only creating ONE extra hour of light per day. Why so chintzy? Why not two, three, four, or even five?

Yeah - - that would be great! Just imagine - - FIVE extra hours of daylight - - every day, all year long. Daylight from 4am to midnight!

Why doesn´t the government do that, mommy? Why? Why? Why?

By definition Noon is when the sun is at its zenith. We save neither daylight nor time under daylight savings time. It only messes with my circadian cycles. As I age I hate it more.

Y´all need to just call the WHAAAAMBULACES! Both sides of the issue... a thread this long, about such trivial Bull Semen is embarrassing to...America!!

Turning the clocks ahead DOES NOTHING TO MAKE MORE DAYLIGHT! It is the season and the position of the sun that makes the days longer. Please end this stupid and senseless practice.

#30, Thank you!

PS....It´s also tough for the kids to go to bed for school for the first week or so on DST. It isn´t natural time like EST. The sun at it´s highest point is supposed to be noon.

It does seem like I´m always changing the clocks now.

I detest DST also. I don’t like darkness in the morning, it belongs to the night. In summer it’s light plenty long enough without DST.

Another Arizonan here, I love not changing our clocks. What I don´t love is how our time relative to everyone else is not constant, i.e, trying to remember if we are now 1 or 2 hours behind our family members in the Midwest (and the 5am phone calls from the mother-in-law suggests they have the same difficulty). I also don´t like how the times for nationally broadcast TV shows change for us...my beloved Top Gear on BBC America comes on at 7 during standard time, but now it´s on at 6 thanks to DST everywhere else. I´m often not even home from work by then.

Changing the clock gives me ´jet lag´.

The battle between early risers and night owls rages on!!

Put me down as another vote for doing away with DST and simply changing hours of operation/work when this makes a positive difference for a particular line of work or activity.
Ramona (the Pest)

Posters #29, 42, and 68 have it right!

DST should be 6 months long---not 8 months.

A large portion of America gets to come home from work now and see their patios and yards, however, the temp. is 40 (or less), and the patio is covered in snow!

I´m in the pro-DST column, but I hate losing that hour of sleep, and it gets harder to adjust the older I get.

This discussion reminds me that several years ago, someone actually wrote, and the newspaper actually printed, a letter about the folly of "Leap Day". They were dead serious that, if we were going to add a day, they shoud add one in the summertime, when we could enjoy it more. I about bust a gut.

Changing the time routinely every year is ridiculous. We always look forward to the longer days of daylight in the Springtime & Summer and so appreciate the extra light at the end of the day provided by DST. ..So, why not simply leave the clocks as they are right now and never change them EVER again?

You can adjust your time by relocating east or west within a given time zone also.

If you live at the extreme west of your time zone, the sun sets much "later" by
the clock where you are.
I first experienced this in Garden City, Kansas in the summer, near the west edge
of the Central Time Zone.
Sunset in summer was 9pm or even later.

Your sunrise and sunset times are controlled by your longitude and latitude.
As ol´ Jimmy Buffett sang in his "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" you can
move where whatever suits you the best, if it´s too big a deal for you.
(I know his song was NOT about DST, thank yewwww.)

...hmmm...by the same logic...why don´t we make December and January shorter....and July and August longer??...I hate the cold.

There is a reason why people get so cranky the immediate days after DST. It is unnatural. Our interior biological clocks know better than any bureaucrat.

It will be 78 here today. 82 tomorrow, then 86, 86 and 81. Glorious clear sunny day.

Time to think about starting tomato plants.

Cheers!

(And the earthquakes were overhyped nothingburgers.)

Oh for heavens sake, I really doubt that time shifting twice a year is the harrowing experience that this writer claims. Most of us have many times during the year when we have to get up an hour earlier or later for some other reason, and we don´t crash our cars because of it. Nor is changing the time on the clocks and watches around the average house a big burden.

If we were to go for no changes, let it be DST year round. The extra daylight in the evening is a boon for all, and wipes out any argument that we have to use a little extra electricity in the early morning.

There are real programs to focus on. Changing the clocks isn´t one of them.

Perhaps I am being a stickler here but must I state the obvious? DST does not "add an extra hour of daylight". There is, was, always will be only 24 hours in a day. Too bad that by fiat we couldn´t add or deduct hours in a day, according to personal preference. But that ain´t the way it works.

Yeah, and what´s with that designated hitter rule, anyway?

Seriously, the go to work one hour earlier rule doesn´t work so well for those with school-age children, particularly if they don´t take an early bus. Zero sum game sounds about right.

I like DST. I am one of those people that #5 mentioned who gets stuck in the office until 7 or 8 pm. So, go away crabby people. I don´t believe it causes heart attacks. I am sure people have to get up a different times once in a while anyway. I do.

#92, for the additional 11% of people who have heart attacks in the several weeks following the "spring forward" phase of DST...
.... it is indeed a "harrowing experience."

The expansion of DST from April-October to March to November wasn´t done so people could play golf or sit on their patios after work. It was pushed by the enviro-wackos who think it saves energy. Jimmah Carter had the same idea back in the 70s, but he wanted DST all year round. That didn´t last long, but now it´s back, along with curly-Q lightbulbs.

NO! Get RID OF NORMAL TIME!

Make Daylight Savings Time PERMANENT!

I despise driving home in the dark on normal time and having no daylight after work hours to get anything done. I feel like a vampire. I hate it. What person in their right mind wants it to get dark at 5 freaking 30?

It´s also less safe to drive home on the freeway at night in the dark.

Very few people get up to tend their crops anymore. They don´t need full daylight at 6AM, but I do need it at night.

I get depressed every time we have to go back.

#17, I have the same type of clock. Right after I bought the "smart" thing, Congress extended DST on either end. It has to be changed four times a year - pul-eeze, what a pain.
Why can´t they keep it where it was? It cuts Into winter by several weeks. I don´t think it saves energy, either.

There is so much more natural beauty to enjoy outdoors in the spring and summer months. It never crossed my mind that anyone would think of the DST change as a nuisance. I think of long summer evenings as a luxury item I get to enjoy for free. I am grateful for every one of them. Who wants to grill a steak or sip a glass of wine in the dark? I enjoy my outdoor surroundings most when the light lingers past 8 or 9 o´clock. It´s such a luxury, but it lasts just a few precious weeks out of the year. I look forward to DST´s return, and always miss it when it ends.