is daylight savings time saving anything?

personally i LOVE daylight savings time and HATE daylight standard time. in fact i don't know why we don't just make the savings time the standard time. and if we are going to move at all in the winter we should more our clocks ahead NOT back.

i grew up in arizona where we didn't do this silliness. we just had noon. noon was always at noon. we didn't play with it. i have never gotten used to people playing with the time. i think the first time i experienced it, i was kinda excited. then i realized that i would miss an hour of sleep. STUPID!

the truth is it seems like we actually LOSE daylight when we "fall back". the sun goes down so early that i have a hard time exercising or even seeing the light of day. there are a few weeks in december/january where i don't see the light of day. i get to work when it is dark and go home in the dark. it really sucks.

i think we would all be healthier if we could have daylight savings time all year long!

ben franklin came up with the concept when americans were agronomists. not many of us do that anymore. and many of us that do are part-timers. Ben hoped to provide more daylight in the mornings so that people could get the milk out and the cows fed etc in the light. saving daylight meant having more in the morning.

things have changed significantly since then. now saving daylight means having more in the evening, when much of america comes home from their cubicles.

some options to this antiquated system:
go back to doing it the way the romans did. they had 12 hours of sunlight no matter what. in the summer those hours were longer, in the winter they were shorter. but 12 hours nonetheless. maybe loosening up on our stringent perceived control of time would also reduce the anxiety produced by missing things by one minute etc. we would all just become more flexible as we calculated time differently?

lindsay heard an interesting proposal on cartalk awhile back: DAILY SAVINGS TIME.
i wholly support this.

"Daily Savings Time"

Peter Kallin

Dear Click and Clack,

The clocks would be set forward by an hour every afternoon at 3:30 p.m., immediately making it 4:30 and almost time to quit work. Every business would immediately save an hour's worth of energy costs every day, a roughly 12% savings. Workers' morale would immediately improve and productivity would soar, since not much gets done after 3:30, anyway.

But wait! There's more. The second part of my plan is to move the clock back an hour every morning at 4:30 a.m., immediately making it 3:30 a.m. This would allow nearly everyone to get an extra hour of sleep every night. Since studies show that the typical American is sleep deprived, this would have immediate health benefits. People would awaken every morning well rested, and in a good mood — even teenagers!

I think that you guys have the technical background to truly appreciate what great savings are available with this straightforward concept. With your support, we can make this happen!

These are just a few of the benefits of Daily Savings Time. Granted, there would be some minor inconveniences, especially for those who work at night. However, the overall benefits far outweigh these minor inconveniences.

In closing, I quote Ben Franklin: "For the great benefit of this discovery, thus freely communicated and bestowed by me on the public, I demand neither place, pension, exclusive privilege, nor any other reward whatever. I expect only to have the honor of it."

Peter Kallin
Doylestown, PA

I have to say, from a public health perspective this only seems beneficial. incredibly beneficial. the loss of the hour during work would have very limited impact on our productivity. peter, you are a genius, my friend!

if you love daily savings time, write your congressman. for some reason, that circus full of monkeys is in charge of our clocks.