What is daylight savings
What is daylight savings
History of Daylight Saving Time (DST)
Daylight Saving Time (DST) is used to save energy and make better use of daylight. It was first used in 1908 in Thunder Bay, Canada.
One of the advantages of Daylight Savings is the long summer evenings.
Daylight Saving Time is the practice of setting the clocks one hour ahead of standard time to make use of more sunlight in the spring, summer, and fall evenings.
First Used in Canada in 1908
While Germany and Austria were the first countries to use DST in 1916, it is a little-known fact that a few hundred Canadians beat the German Empire by eight years. On July 1, 1908, the residents of Port Arthur, Ontario—today’s Thunder Bay—turned their clocks forward by one hour to start the world’s first DST period.
Other locations in Canada soon followed suit. On April 23, 1914, Regina in Saskatchewan implemented DST. The cities of Winnipeg and Brandon in Manitoba did so on April 24, 1916. According to the April 3, 1916, edition of the Manitoba Free Press, Daylight Saving Time in Regina “proved so popular that bylaw now brings it into effect automatically.”
Law text for the world’s first nationwide DST switch (Reichsgesetzblatt, German Empire, 1916).
Germany Popularized DST
However, the idea did not catch on globally until Germany introduced DST in 1916. Clocks in the German Empire, and its ally Austria, were turned ahead by one hour on April 30, 1916—two years into World War I. The rationale was to minimize the use of artificial lighting to save fuel for the war effort.
Within a few weeks, the United Kingdom, France, and many other countries followed the idea. Most of them reverted to standard time after World War I, and it wasn’t until the next World War that DST made its return in most of Europe.
Who Invented DST?
If you think Daylight Saving Time is a good idea, you can thank New Zealand scientist George Vernon Hudson and British builder William Willett. In 1895, Hudson presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society, proposing a 2-hour shift forward in October and a 2-hour shift back in March. There was interest in the idea, but it was never followed through.
In 1905, independently from Hudson, British builder William Willett suggested setting the clocks ahead 20 minutes on each of the four Sundays in April, and switching them back by the same amount on each of the four Sundays in September, a total of eight time switches per year.
First Daylight Saving Bill
Willett’s Daylight Saving plan caught the attention of Robert Pearce, a British Member of Parliament, and he introduced a bill to the House of Commons in February 1908. The first Daylight Saving Bill was drafted in 1909, presented to Parliament several times, and examined by a select committee. However, many, especially farmers, opposed the idea, so the bill was never made into a law.
Willett died in 1915, the year before the United Kingdom started using DST in May 1916. It is not known if he was aware that his idea had become a reality seven years before his death in a small town in Ontario.
Benjamin Franklin, the Father of DST?
Many sources also credit Benjamin Franklin for being the first to suggest seasonal time change. However, the idea voiced by the American inventor and politician in 1784 can hardly be described as fundamental for the development of modern DST. After all, it did not even involve turning the clocks. In a letter to the editor of the Journal of Paris, entitled “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light,” Franklin simply suggested that Parisians could economize candle usage by getting people out of bed earlier in the morning. What’s more: Franklin meant it as a joke.
An Ancient Idea
Although modern DST has only been used for about 100 years, ancient civilizations are known to have engaged in comparable practices thousands of years ago. For example, the Roman water clocks used different scales for different months of the year to adjust the daily schedules to the solar time.
Daylight Saving Today
Daylight Saving Time is now used in over 70 countries worldwide and affects over one billion people every year. The beginning and end dates vary from one country to another.
What Is Daylight Saving Time?
Daylight Saving Time (DST) is the practice of setting the clocks forward one hour from standard time during the summer months, and back again in the fall, in order to make better use of natural daylight.
Clocks are set forward 1 hour for DST in the spring. The sculpture is of «Six Public Clocks» in Canary Wharf, London, U.K.
Clocks Back or Forward?
“Spring forward, fall back” is one of the little sayings used to remember which way to set your watch. You set your clock forward one hour in the spring when DST starts (= lose 1 hour), and back one hour when DST ends in the fall (= regain 1 hour).
Northern Hemisphere
North America, Central America, Europe, Asia, northern Africa
Many countries in the Northern Hemisphere (north of the equator) use DST in the summer time, but not all. Daylight Saving Time usually starts in March-April and ends in September-November when the countries return to standard time, or winter time as it is also known.
Southern Hemisphere
Australia, New Zealand, most of South America, southern Africa
In the Southern Hemisphere (south of the equator) the participating countries usually start the DST period in September-November and end DST in March-April.
Not without Controversy
Proposals to stay on standard time or move to full-time DST appear on the legislative agenda in the United States nearly every clock change. Since 2015, more than 200 daylight saving bills and resolutions have been introduced in almost every state across the US, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Several US states have passed bills in favor of permanent DST. However, they need congressional approval to abolish the time change. For this to happen, Congress first has to pass a federal law allowing states to observe DST year-round, because today’s law only allows states to forgo DST.
European Union Ready to Scrap DST
Daylight Saving Time could soon be a thing of the past in Europe. On March 26, 2019, the European Parliament voted in favor of backing the EU Committee draft directive to stop the one-hour clock change in the European Union.
The proposal is another formal step towards a permanent elimination of DST in the EU and will form the basis of discussions between the EU Ministers to produce a final law repealing Directive 2000/84/EC, the EU’s existing DST legislation.
More Than 100 Years
When Germany first set the clocks forward on April 30, 1916, it became the first country in the world to use DST on a national level. However, the town of Thunder Bay in Ontario, Canada implemented DST as far back as 1908.
Suggested Earlier
US inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin first proposed the concept of DST in 1784, but modern Daylight Saving Time was first suggested in 1895. At that time, George Vernon Hudson, an entomologist from New Zealand, presented a proposal for a 2-hour daylight saving shift.
Why Use DST at All?
Less than 40% of the countries in the world use DST. Some countries use it to make better use of the natural daylight in the evenings. The difference in light is most noticeable in the areas at a certain distance from Earth’s equator.
Some studies show that DST could lead to fewer road accidents and injuries by supplying more daylight during the hours more people use the roads. Other studies claim that people’s health might suffer due to DST changes.
DST is also used to reduce the amount of energy needed for artificial lighting during the evening hours. However, many studies disagree about DST’s energy savings, and while some studies show a positive outcome, others do not.
Not Always One Hour
Today clocks are almost always set one hour back or ahead.
However, on Lord Howe Island, Australia, clocks are set only 30 minutes forward from LHST (UTC+10:30) to LHDT (UTC+11) during DST.
Throughout history, there have been several variations, like half adjustments (30 minutes) or double adjustment (2 hours). Adjustments of 20 and 40 minutes have also been used.
How Does Daylight Saving Time Work?
When Daylight Saving Time (DST) begins, we lose an hour. When it ends, we gain an hour. So how exactly does the DST switch work?
When Daylight Saving Time starts in the spring, we lose an hour of sleep.
What Is Daylight Saving Time?
DST is a seasonal time change measure where clocks are set ahead of standard time during part of the year. As DST starts, the Sun rises and sets later, on the clock, than the day before.
Today, about 40% of countries worldwide have DST to make better use of daylight and conserve energy.
Spring Forward in Spring
When DST starts in the spring, our clocks are set forward by a certain amount of time, usually by one hour. This means that one hour is skipped, and on the clock, the day of the DST transition has only 23 hours.
Since DST switches usually occur at night to avoid disrupting public life, they snatch away an hour of our usual sleeping time, forcing us to adjust our body clocks. If you set your alarm to the same time as before the clock change, you will sleep an hour less. The good news is that if you work a night shift, you will get away with working one hour less that night.
Example of DST Start
The DST period in the United States begins at 02:00 (2 am) local time, so the hour from 2:00:00 to 2:59:59 does not exist in the night of the switch. It is skipped as clocks spring forward from 1:59:59 standard time to 3:00:00 Daylight Saving Time (see table).
| Local Time | DST or Standard Time? | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| 1:59:58 | Standard | |
| 1:59:59 | Standard | |
| 3:00:00 | DST | DST starts, clocks jump ahead by 1 hour |
| 3:00:01 | DST | |
| 3:00:02 | DST |
Note: the DST period may begin and end at different local times in other countries, but the principle is the same.
Fall Back in Fall
In the fall (autumn), the DST period usually ends, and our clocks are set back to standard time again. In terms of hours on the clock, we gain one hour, so the day of the transition is 25 hours long.
In effect, one hour is repeated as local time jumps from DST back to standard time. Let’s say that clocks fall back from 2 to 1 o’clock. This means that the hour between 1 and 2 o’clock happens twice during the night of the switch.
It also means that a time like 01:30 (1:30 am) refers to two different moments, which are one hour apart. So if you’re out to meet somebody during that hour—which really lasts two hours—make sure to specify if the meeting is before the switch (first hour) or after it (second hour).
Example of DST End
In the United States, DST always ends at 02:00 (2 am) local time, and clocks are set back to 01:00 (1 am). The table below shows the moment when the time first reaches 1:59:59 and clocks jump back to 1:00:00 standard time and begin ticking towards 2 o’clock for a second time. When the repeated hour is over, local time goes from 1:59:59 to 2:00:00, just like on any other day.
| Local time | DST or standard time? | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| 1:59.58 | DST | |
| 1:59.59 | DST | |
| 1:00:00 | Standard | DST ends, clocks fall back by 1 hour |
| 1:00:01 | Standard | |
| 1:00:02 | Standard |
DST Doesn’t Really Make the Evening Longer
It is often said that evenings are longer during DST as the Sun sets one hour later. But that is only half true: On the day after DST starts, the Sun does indeed rise and set at a later time on the clock, creating the illusion of a longer evening.
DST only affects our civil time. It does not alter the Sun’s course, the times of sunrise and sunset, or the daylength, which change only gradually as seasons shift during the course of a year.
What DST does is to change the time we use to schedule our daily routines, shifting it in relation to solar time, which is defined by the Sun’s course. When we spring forward as DST begins, our clocks show a later time at sunrise, solar noon, and sunset. But, even though days are longer during the summer, that does not mean that these events suddenly occur later when we change our clocks. For example, if the Sun sets at 18:00 (6 pm) on the day before DST starts and at 19:01 (7:01 pm) on the day after, the actual day-to-day difference, in astronomical terms, is one minute.
What is Daylight Savings Time, how it came to be, and why we should probably get rid of it
Depending on where you live, you might have noticed that every now and then, something strange happens to the time of day — it gets pushed back and forth by an hour. The practice is called Daylight Savings Time (DST), and it involves advancing clocks during summer months so that evening daylight lasts longer, at the sacrifice of normal sunrise times. The time is shifted forward by one hour close to the start of spring and then pushed backward in the autumn time.
Not all countries do participate, and not everyone thinks this is a good idea. Here, we’ll have a look at how this phenomenon started and whether or not we should get rid of it.
Blue: Northern hemisphere summer. Orange: Southern hemisphere summer. Light grey: formerly used daylight savings. Dark grey: never used daylight savings.
Inventing Daylight Savings Time
In 1895, New Zealand scientist George Vernon Hudson presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society advocating a 2-hour shift forward in October and a 2-hour shift back in March. People thought it was an interesting idea, but it never caught any significant traction. Independently from Hudson, British builder William Willett proposed setting the clocks ahead 20 minutes on each of the 4 Sundays in April and then setting them back on every Sunday in September, making a total of 8 switches a year. Willett’s proposal was discussed by the British Parliament, but it didn’t gain enough support to become a law. His idea was also motivated by a rather petty grievance of Willet. An avid golfer, Willett disliked cutting short his round at dusk and wanted to enjoy the longer daylight hours of the summer.
The rationale behind it seemed fairly logical: in an industrialized world, we have a clock-based schedule for daily activities. We go to work at school at fixed hours, we leave at fixed hours, shops run at fixed hours, and so on. However, north and south of the tropics, daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter. Daylight Savings is a way of adjusting our schedule to that geographical situation, shifting our active day based on the daylight. They also proposed that DST would save energy by reducing the need for artificial illumination, though recent studies have challenged that assumption (more on that later).
Ironically, the first country to implement DST was Germany, during World War I — on April 30, 1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary introduced DST as a way to save coal during wartime. It didn’t take long for the rest of Europe and the US to follow suit.
A poster showing Uncle Sam turning a clock to daylight saving time as a clock-headed figure throws his hat in the air. Image via Library of Congress. The poster was commissioned by the United Cigar Stores Company.
DST struggles
Since its early days, DST has undergone several changes, modifications, and challenges. Different countries approach it in different ways, and some countries have abandoned it altogether.
Several countries repealed DST after WWI, although Britain continued to use it. Winston Churchill argued that it enlarged “the opportunities for the pursuit of health and happiness among the millions of people who live in this country.”
World War II brought DST back to the table and after that, DST has continued to be a hotly debated topic.
Retailing and tourism industries have continuously supported the use of DST, while numerous other groups, especially farmers, have fought against it. Interestingly, US President Woodrow Wilson, like Willett an avid golfer, vetoed the repeal twice but his second veto was overridden — only to be reintroduced again, several decades later.
The chart plots the times of sunrise and sunset (with DST adjustment as separate lines) in Greenwich, GB for 2007. Image via Wikipedia.
As of 2018, the European Union shifts all zones at the same instant — at 01:00 Greenwich Mean Time. In the US, the standardization of peacetime DST didn’t come until 1966, excluding Arizona and Hawaii, who don’t use it.
DST doesn’t really make any sense when you’re close to the equator, since the day and the night are approximately the same length regardless of season, and when you go to high latitudes, where the daylight shifts are so dramatic that they can’t be balanced by a clock adjustment.
The pros and cons of DST
Supporters of DST argue that it saves energy, promotes outdoor leisure activity in the evening (in summer), and is therefore good for physical and psychological health, reduces traffic accidents, reduces crime or is good for business.
Opponents say that it doesn’t save energy, it increases health risks (such as heart attacks), it disrupts activities, and the sheer act of moving the clock twice a year causes confusion and risks that far outweight any small benefits.
Let’s take them one by one.
DST and energy
A 2017 meta-analysis of 44 studies found that DST leads to electricity savings of only 0.34% during the days when DST applies. Furthermore, the reduction isn’t uniform, and some countries actually lose energy rather than gain it. They found that while countries like Canada and the United Kingdom save energy, the US, Mexico, and North Africa actually lose energy by switching to DST.
Subtropical climates are highlighted in yellow on this map. People living in these areas may consume more energy as a result of DST.
Furthermore, several studies have suggested that DST increases motor fuel consumption. All in all, the idea that DST saves energy doesn’t seem to have enough backing to justify Daylight Savings.
DST and health
Again, DST has mixed effects on health. By causing the sun to rise and set later by an hour, Daylight Savings offers more sun exposure, which can be a good thing (as it supports increased production of vitamin D and it tends to make people happier) or a bad thing (by raising the risk of skin cancer). Some studies have found that DST alleviates depression, while other studies claim the contrary.
DST shifts are associated with higher rates of ischemic stroke in the first two days after the shift, though this trend doesn’t continue after the first few days. Several studies have also found that DST tends to disrupt sleep patterns. The start of DST has also been linked to miscarriages for in vitro fertilization patients.
Daylight Savings Time and public health
Lighter is safer — DST seems to reduce some types of robbery (most notably robbery and sexual assault), as fewer potential victims are outside after dusk.
In 1975, the U.S. DOT conservatively identified a 0.7% reduction in traffic fatalities during DST, and estimated the real reduction at 1.5% to 2%. However, subsequent studies have failed to find similar results and accidents do increase by as much as 11% during the two weeks that follow the end of British Summer Time — potentially due to the sleep problems mentioned above. However, this correlation doesn’t seem to apply in places like Finland, and it’s not fully clear why.
Confusion
The problem with DST is that you have to do it — people need to remember it and adjust accordingly, which is a hassle. Even a small hassle, when applied to a sufficiently large part of the population, can have dramatic consequences.
People who work across time zone boundaries need to keep track of multiple DST rules, and it’s surprisingly common for people who have flights or meetings the around DST to get confused and forget to update their schedule accordingly, causing a significant waste of time and effort.
Disruption to broadcasts, billing systems, and records management are also common and can be expensive.
Time and money
However, in this particular debate, there are two sides: the winners and the losers.
The biggest winners of DST are the retailers, sporting good makers, and travel operators — the extra hours of sunlight in between the end of the typical workday and bedtime often lead people to travel more, participate in more sports, and spend more time outdoors, where they often buy things. A 1999 study estimated that DST increases the revenue of the European Union’s leisure sector by about 3%.
But on the other hand, DST harms prime-time television broadcast ratings, as well as theaters. But perhaps the biggest damage is done to farmers. It’s not just the confusion factor, but farmers also argue that grain is best harvested after dew evaporates, so when field hands arrive and leave earlier in summer, their labor is less valuable. Animals are also more sensitive to timing and can be seriously affected by Daylight Savings.
The bottom line
We could go on and on about the effects of DST. As far as any reasonable person can tell, there seem to be arguments both for and against this practice — none of the two sides seems to be able to deal a killing blow to the other, although there does seem to be growing evidence that Daylight Savings does more harm than good. If this is indeed the case, then perhaps a world-wide change is in order, and some countries have already started discussing it.
But in the meantime, if you have to live with DST, it’s important that you take the necessary steps to adjust to it. Keep a mental note of DST happening sometime in early Spring and Autumn, and when it happens, make sure your schedule takes this into account. Start sleeping early a few days before DST, and avoid taking naps — this should help you adjust quicker to the new time. Have a healthy, refreshing breakfast and avoid coffee and other caffeinated beverages several hours hours before bedtime. Try to expose yourself to the morning daylight, and, of course, take advantage of the longer daylight hours through sports and other enjoyable activities.
Daylight Saving Time 2022: When Does the Time Change?
Find out when it’s time to change the clocks for Daylight Saving Time!
When Does Daylight Saving Time End This Year?
Adjust your clocks Saturday night! Daylight Saving Time begins on Sunday, March 13, 2022, at 2:00 A.M. At this time, we “spring forward” one hour! See details about the history of “saving daylight” and why we still observe DST today. Plus, let us know what you think!
What Is Daylight Saving Time?
Daylight Saving Time ( DST ) is the practice of moving the clocks forward one hour from Standard Time during the summer months and changing them back again in the fall. The general idea is that this allows us all to make better use of natural daylight: moving the clocks forward one hour in the spring grants us more daylight during summer evenings, while moving clocks back one hour in the fall grants us more daylight during winter mornings. However, DST has many detractors—and rightfully so! (Read more about this below.)
When Is Daylight Saving Time This Year? When Does the Time Change?
Daylight Saving Time always begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. To remember which way to set their clocks, folks often use the expression, “spring forward, fall back.” (Note that these dates are for locations in the United States and Canada only; other countries may follow different dates!)
Note: Since the time changes at 2:00 A.M., we generally change our clocks before bed on Saturday.
Daylight Saving Time Dates
Note: In the U.S., exceptions to DST are Arizona (except for the Navajo Nation), Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and American Samoa.
Is it Daylight “Saving” or “Savings” Time?
The correct term is “Daylight Saving Time“ and not “Daylight Savings Time” (with an extra “s”), though many of us are guilty of saying it the wrong way. The technical explanation is that the word “saving” is singular because it acts as part of an adjective rather than a verb.
The History of Daylight Saving Time
Why Did Daylight Saving Time Start?
Should we blame Ben?
Benjamin Franklin’s “An Economical Project,” written in 1784, is the earliest known proposal to “save” daylight. It was whimsical in tone, advocating laws to compel citizens to rise at the crack of dawn to save the expense of candlelight:
DST ’s True Founder?
Willet spent a small fortune lobbying businessmen, members of Parliament, and the U.S. Congress to put clocks ahead 20 minutes on each of the four Sundays in April, and reverse the process on consecutive Sundays in September. But his proposal was met mostly with ridicule. One community opposed it on moral grounds, calling the practice the sin of “lying” about true time.
World War I Led to Adoption of DST
Attitudes changed after World War I broke out. The government and citizenry recognized the need to conserve coal used for heating homes. The Germans were the first to officially adopt the light-extending system in 1915, as a fuel-saving measure during World War I. This led to the introduction in 1916 of British Summer Time: From May 21 to October 1, clocks in Britain were put an hour ahead.
The United States followed in 1918, when Congress passed the Standard Time Act, which established the time zones. However, this was amidst great public opposition. A U.S. government Congressional Committee was formed to investigate the benefits of Daylight Saving Time. Many Americans viewed the practice as an absurd attempt to make late sleepers get up early. Others thought that it was unnatural to follow “clock time” instead of “Sun time.” A columnist in the Saturday Evening Post offered this alternative: “Why not ‘save summer’ by having June begin at the end of February?”
The matter took on new meaning in April 1917, when President Woodrow Wilson declared war. Suddenly, energy conservation was of paramount importance, and several efforts were launched to enlist public support for changing the clocks. A group called the National Daylight Saving Convention distributed postcards showing Uncle Sam holding a garden hoe and rifle, turning back the hands of a huge pocket watch. Voters were asked to sign and mail to their congressman postcards that declared, “If I have more daylight, I can work longer for my country. We need every hour of light.” Manhattan’s borough president testified to Congress that the extra hour of light would be a boon to home gardening, and therefore increase the Allies’ food supply. Posters chided, “Uncle Sam, your enemies have been up and are at work in the extra hour of daylight—when will YOU wake up?”
With public opinion in its favor, Congress officially declared that all clocks would be moved ahead one hour at 2:00 A.M. on March 31, 1918. (Canada adopted a similar policy later the same year.) Americans were encouraged to turn off their lights and go to bed earlier than they normally did—at around 8:00 P.M.
Farmers Did NOT Favor DST
Many Americans wrongly point to farmers as the driving force behind Daylight Saving Time. In fact, farmers were its strongest opponents and, as a group, stubbornly resisted the change from the beginning.
When the war was over, the farmers and working-class people who had held their tongues began to speak out. They demanded an end to Daylight Saving Time, claiming that it benefited only office workers and the leisure class. The controversy put a spotlight on the growing gap between rural and urban dwellers. As a writer for the Literary Digest put it, “The farmer objects to doing his early chores in the dark merely so that his city brother, who is sound asleep at the time, may enjoy a daylight motor ride at eight in the evening.”
The Daylight Saving Time experiment lasted only until 1920, when the law was repealed due to opposition from dairy farmers (cows don’t pay attention to clocks). No fewer than 28 bills to repeal Daylight Saving Time had been introduced to Congress, and the law was removed from the books. American had tolerated Daylight Saving Time for about seven months.
DST Returns
The subject did not come up again until after the attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941, and the United States was once again at war.
After the war (which concluded with Japan’s final surrender on September 2, 1945), Daylight Saving Time started being used on and off in different states, beginning and ending on days of their choosing.
Local Differences and Inconsistency
Inconsistent adherence to time zones among the states created considerable confusion with interstate bus and train service. To remedy the situation, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act in 1966, establishing consistent use of Daylight Saving Time within the United States: Clocks were to be set ahead one hour on the last Sunday in April and one hour back on the last Sunday in October.
That was the rule, but some state legislatures took exception via a loophole that had been built into the law. Residents of Hawaii and most of Arizona did not change their clocks. Residents of Indiana, which straddles the Eastern and Central time zones, were sharply divided on Daylight Saving Time: Some counties employed it, some did not.
In 1986, the U.S. Congress approved a bill to increase the period of Daylight Saving Time, moving the start to the first Sunday in April. The goal was to conserve oil used for generating electricity—an estimated 300,000 barrels annually. (In 2005, the entire state of Indiana became the 48th state to observe Daylight Saving Time.)
Daylight Saving Time Today
The current daylight saving period was established with the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which went into effect in 2007.
Today, most Americans spring forward (turn clocks ahead and lose an hour) on the second Sunday in March (at 2:00 A.M. ) and fall back (turn clocks back and gain an hour) on the first Sunday in November (at 2:00 A.M. ). See how your sunrise and sunset times will change with our Sunrise/set Calculator.
However, farmers’ organizations continue to lobby Congress against the practice, preferring early daylight to tend to their fields and a Standard Time sunset for ending their work at a reasonable hour. Some farmers point out that the Daylight Saving Time is deceptively misnamed. “It is a gimmick that changes the relationship between ‘Sun’ time and ‘clock’ time but saves neither time nor daylight,” says Katherine Dutro, spokesperson for the Indiana Farm Bureau.
Most of Canada is on Daylight Saving Time; only portions of Saskatchewan and small pockets of British Columbia remain on Standard Time year-round. However, the practice has its detractors. In the words of a current-day Canadian poultry producer, “The chickens do not adapt to the changed clock until several weeks have gone by, so the first week of April and the last week of October are very frustrating for us.” Similarly, one Canadian researcher likened an increase in traffic accidents to the onset of Daylight Saving Time. Other experts insist that the extra hour of daylight reduces crime.
As of 2021, an impressive 33 states have proposed bills to end the practice of switching clocks. However, the legislation can only go into effect if the federal law changes. The Uniform Time Act would need to be amended to allow such a change. See the latest on which states have passed bills to put a stop to DST changes.
Share your thoughts about DST below—and see readers’ comments from the past. As you can see, our Almanac readers are quite passionate about this topic!