It’s Not Daylight Savings Time

Each and every year we spring forward moving our clocks ahead an hour in the Spring and fall back moving our clocks back and hour in the Fall. Not every state complies with these yearly rituals. There was a time when Daylight Saving Time was not observed in most of the Eastern Time Zone portion of Indiana and the states of Arizona and Hawaii. Making appointments in Indiana could be very confusing since some of the state observed DST and other parts did not. Indiana joined 47 other states and switched to Daylight Saving Time on March 9, 2008. Before we go any further, it’s Daylight Saving (singular) Time and not Daylight Savings (plural) Time. If you put money in a bank, you open a “savings account.” The main purpose of Daylight Saving Time is to extend the period of daylight by moving an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening, thus, saving daylight. One of its goals is to save energy, cut down on traffic accidents, and give people more daylight in the evenings for outside work and recreation.

Benjamin Franklin seems to be the inspiration behind the practice, although cutting down on automobile traffic deaths was not in his purview, but I guess nighttime carriage deaths were an issue. His rationale appeared in a 1784 article with the title An Economical Project. The idea took some time to catch on. The plan was finally adopted in the United Statesin 1918. During WW II, the clocks were messed with again, but only temporarily. During the energy crisis of 1973, because of an oil embargo by OPEC, President Nixon signed the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act into law. Clocks were set ahead for fifteen months through April 27, 1975. I believe we should pass a law that moves the clock back by 30 minutes and leave it there.

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