Who actually enjoys the two time changes for day light savings time?

The first daylight savings time law in the United States was signed on March 19th 1918, to preserve daylight and provide standard time for the United States. It both established standard time zones and set summer day light savings time to begin March 31st 1918. DST was observed for 7 months in 1918 and 1919. After World War One the day light savings law proved so unpopular that the law was repealed in 1919. The main reason was people rose earlier and went to bed earlier than people do today. The repeal was not complete, with a congressional override of President Wilson’s veto day light savings time became a local option and was continued by several states and even major cities. Kind of a willy nilly approach for something that should really be nationalized.

Daylight savings time changed to War time in 1942 when President Roosevelt instituted a year around program that lasted from February 9th 1942 through September 30th 1945. From 1945 to 1966 there were no federal laws regarding daylight savings time, states and localities were free to chose whether or not to observe daylight savings time and when it would start and end. This created more confusion than in today’s time, broadcasters, railways, airlines and bus companies were in a pickle because they had other governing laws about publishing schedules, a nearly impossible thing when everyone is doing their own thing when it came to time. In 1966 the Interstate Commerce Commission was stymied trying to determine how to align the multitudes of times into a standard that traversed the country, they were hopelessly deadlocked and some businesses and industries were supportive and many were not.

The Time Uniformity Committee was finally successful, only after they appealed to the general public, the kicker was a 35 mile stretch of highway, route 2 between Moundsville West Virginia and Steubenville Ohio that had 7 time changes in 35 miles. The uniform time act was passed in 1966 – 15 of the US code section 260a was signed into public law 89-387 on April 12th 1966 by Lyndon Johnson. This law had the stipulation that if the state wanted to pass a state law they could exempt themselves from the federal law. There was a small revision to that law in 1972 that allowed states that straddled two time zones to make a provision that exempted parts of the state so the whole state was on the same time. On January 4th 1972 President Nixon signed into law the emergency daylight savings time energy conservation act of 1973, the law was implemented on January 6th 1974. There was a short pissing match between the President and Congress about the dates and times that ended on October 1975. In 1986 the law was amended again to set the dates, the first Sunday in April and last Sunday of October as the official dates with the time change being 2am.

So the Energy Policy Act of 2005 changed daylight savings time again, as part of the United State’s energy policy, who dreamed up that ridiculous nonsense? The Secretary of Energy reported back to congress in 2007 that the impact of this latest change was so small that it did not raise to the level of having to reconsider the time, again. So the dates now are the second Sunday of March we spring ahead and first Sunday of November we fall back again. That change was made as part of our countries energy policy, unbelievable! That was the best we could come up with to free ourselves from dependence on foreign oil. WONDERFUL. Now there are statistics that can tell us such things as it saves energy, it results in fewer traffic accidents, it produces fewer violent crimes, it is safer for trick or treating children and it also increases voter turnout. I am not making that up, although I wish I were because I am convinced that is the reason we have had the latest change.

So there is a little history of daylight savings time in the United States, all bullshit really when it comes to how miserable the time changes make me, both ways! It screws up my internal clock for a month, sleep patterns are disrupted, feeding times are out of kilter and a general malaise forms around me. The first few days I am unbearably irritable, I do not like my routine thrown out of whack so I can contribute to the countries energy conservation. Besides what it does to me physically and emotionally it forces me to come into balance with all my gadgets, I have to reset clocks in the car, on the stove, on the wall and in my garage. Where I work, it has such an impact we have written procedures on how to deal with all the devices as they change time, while still locked to a satellite that is hovering in orbit, in space. I for one find the whole damn thing ridiculous and feel it should be repealed immediately, one time (or three times eastern, central and pacific) for the whole country. The earth has been orbiting the sun for a LONG time without ever having daylight savings time and people throughout time have managed to get by with the sunrise and sunset changing. Hell the first time piece, widely accepted, is an Egyptian shadow clock has only been around since about 3500bc I think we can figure it out.

What do you think of the daylight savings time?