Is The Clock Ticking On Daylight Saving?
California Proposition 7 puts the time-twisting practice to a vote
I awake abruptly to blazing sunlight shining through my dorm window. My eyes slowly adjust to the bright light as I rub them awake. Something doesn’t seem quite right. Then, I remember that it is Daylight Saving Time. The early mornings will now be lighter, and the early evenings darker. My body will eventually adjust to the time change, but the shorters days leave me feeling blue. I’m not the only one.
“It’s just depressing, and I hate it,” says Kanoe a Whittier College senior. Lucas, a Whittier College sophomore agrees. “The extra hour of sleep is good, but personally I like it lighter later [instead of longer night] because I feel like you don’t have to go to bed, so you can be more productive,” he says.
Not everyone is affected equally by the time change. Jezebel, a sophomore, says, “I don’t notice it until my phone notifies me.”
Whether you like it or not, every year on November 4th, everyone not living in either Hawaii and Arizona sets their clocks back one hour in compliance with Daylight Saving Time — a practice first mandated in the U.S. during World War. Daylight savings comes just two days before the national midterm elections. California, though, may soon join Hawaii and Arizona in thumbing its nose at the spring and fall traditions if a ballot measure is approved by voters on election day, Tuesday, November 6.
Proposition 7, proposes to allow the California state legisltature to make changes to Daylight Saving Times, or even get rid of it altogether, provided two-thirds of the legislature approve. In other words, if voters approve the ballot measure, the state legislature will have it within its power to bring back a little more light to our dark winter nights.
We can thank Benjamin Franklin for the concept of daylight savings. He first proposed the idea in his essay “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light,” written while he was an American delegate in Paris in 1784. This suggestion was not acknowledged until William Wilett, an Englishman, revisited the idea in his 1907 pamphlet, “The Waste of Daylight.” Though the idea was controversial even then, the Brits passed an act that adjusted the clocks to provide more morning daylight.
In the United States, Daylight Saving Time came into practice during World War I to conserve energy. On March 19, 1918 the United States adopted two statutes to create standard time zones and set daylight saving time in the summer months. This lasted seven months, until the statutes were repealed under public pressure in 1919. President Roosevelt created year-round Daylight Saving Time during World War II, from February 9, 1942 to September 30, 1945.
The wisdom of bending time was not universally accepted and local counties were given the option of adhering to hold Daylight Saving Time, which created confusion. Daylight Saving Time was inconsistently observed during the 1960’s, which caused problems across the country. The nation’s official timekeeper, The Interstate Commerce Commission, was not able to operate due to the time confusion. Business people were in support of standardizing time, but farmers, who liked daylight coming earlier in the autumn were not.
In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Uniform Time Act, which established Daylight Saving Time lasting from the last Sunday in April to the last Sunday of October. Since its initial standardization, amendments have been made slightly altering the week and exact times the clocks are changed, but all states have abided by the law unless they have passed a state law to opt out. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 changed the Daylight Saving Time period by moving the start date from the first Sunday in April to the second Sunday in March and moving the end date from the last Sunday of October to the first Sunday in November.
This is where Proposition 7 comes in. Californians are voting on giving the state legislature the power to reconsider the wisdom of “springing ahead” and “falling back” with our clocks every year. Kansen Chu, a California Democratic State Assembly member from District 25 near San Jose, supports the proposition, citing negative impacts on sleep schedules and health that come with putting the time of day out of rythm with our internal circadian clocks. Proponents say, too, that it’s an outdated practice that doesn’t really conserve energy as it was originally intended to do. Dr. Sion Roy, a cardiologist, supports thebill because research shows that more heart attacks occurs in the period right after the time changes as the body struggles to adjust.
Dr. Sion Roy, a cardiologist, supports the bill because research shows that more heart attacks occurs in the period right after the time changes as the body struggles to adjust.
Some of the bill’s opponents, such as Republican Jim Nielsen from District 4 in Northern California, say Daylight Saving Time works just fine and there’s no need to mess with it. Other opponents say that messing with Daylight Saving will cause safety issues for those who would have to go to work and school in dark should we decide not to turn clocks back and hour in the fall. Assembly member Philip Chen and Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson are against the proposition because they declare that this reversal of Daylight Saving Time has been tried before and failed and sat that it increases danger in the winter because it will stay darker longer.
The Daylight Saving debate is likely to rage on regardless of what happens to Prop. 7 on Tuesday. It’s been going on for decades already. In 1975, the Department of Transportation released a study that showed a small savings in the country’s electricity consumption due do Daylight Saving. A study released the very next year by the National Bureau of Standards contradicted those findings. Other studies show that Daylight Saving is good for the economy because it gets peopel out of the house and spending more money in the longer spring and summer days.
In the U.S. and Great Britain, studies show that Daylight Saving Time reduces traffic accidents and fatalities by nearly one percent because nighttime accidents are decreased even though morning accidents increase. A U.S. study from 1975 to 1995 by Varughese and Allen, published in 2001 stated that there was an increase in automobile accidents the Monday after the spring Daylight Saving time change, and an increase on the Sunday of the fall time change.
There appears to be no consensus on the efficacy of Daylight Saving. When it comes to Daylight Saving Time and Proposition 7, Sara Angevine, Professor of Political Science Professor at Whittier College, says, “I have yet to see a great case for why this should be changed aside from the fact that California exceptionalism is something that’s real. It was designed around industry of trains and that is no longer relevant, so it would be something I would like to see the entire country do rather than state by state.”
While she may not view Proposition 7 as something essential, Angevine does see it as something essentially Californian. “I think it is more interesting how California tries to move the needle on all sort of things first and foremost,” says Professor Angevine, “and that whether or not it is successful, [and] whether or not it will have a positive or negative impact on people’s lives, I think there are much more important issues. However, it’s great that, again, people take initiative, put things on the ballot, start a new conversation California style.”
It’s great that, again, people take initiative, put things on the ballot, start a new conversation California style. — Professor Angevine
Although the Proposition 7 will not change Daylight Saving, if passed it does provide the legislature with the opportunity to change it in the future. College students might want to fully understand the proposition before they cast their votes on Tuesday.
