Well, it’s going to be a busy weekend around here — it’s halloween, OTBN, there’s a full moon and Daylight Saving Time begins, or actually, I guess it ends. Anyhow, along with everything else, we have to deal with changing the clocks again.
I know we’ve talked about this before, but the credit, or blame, for DST is often credited to Benjamin Franklin. He was at least one of the first ones to propose the concept in his 1784 essay, “An Economical Project.” However, no one really took it seriously until more than a century later.
The current format for DST was proposed in New Zealand by an entomologist, George Hudson. In 1895 he recommended a two-hour time change because he wanted more daylight after work to hunt bugs in the summer.
DST was first adopted by Germany during World War I, when Germany was looking for ways to save energy. A number of countries, including the United States followed suit for the duration of the war. DST was used again during World War II as a way to save energy for war production. After World War II, the U.S. continued to observe daylight saving time, but there was no standard law about how to implement it — it didn’t become a national standard in the U.S. until 1966.
DST is considered dangerous by many people. According to supposedly reliable research, cluster headaches are more likely within two weeks of the time change, people are more prone to car crashes, the incidence of heart attacks may be higher as a result of the time change and more people seek help for depression in the weeks after the transition from the extended summer daylight hours.
The original intent of DST was to save electricity, but a lot of people wake up before the sun rises and need to turn on the lights or the heat, or both, during those cold dark mornings, probably offsetting any energy that might be saved in the evenings. And — farmers actually hate DST. It is/was popular to believe that farmers pushed for the change to more daylight hours, but they hate it because it disrupts their schedule too much. They already make the most of the daylight and wake up very early.
Being a big fan of trains, it’s always been interesting to me the way Amtrak treats DST. Trains aren’t allowed to leave a station before their scheduled time (in order to keep to their published timetables.) So when the clocks are set back one hour in the fall, all Amtrak trains in the U.S. that are running on time (not sure how many that would be) stop at 2:00 am and wait one hour before continuing. In the spring, at the DST change, trains are immediately an hour behind schedule at 2:00 am, but they just keep going and do their best to make up the time.
There’s been a lot of controversy lately about DST and a lot, maybe the majority, of people think it should be done away with. But for now, whether you think it’s good or bad or are for or against it — it is what it is. Like most things, if it’s left up to Washington to resolve, it’ll probably be around for a long time. Anyhow, it may not be so bad — as I heard someone say…. it lets poor people experience jet lag.
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