The US needs to retire daylight savings and just have two time zones—one hour apart

[KamaAina]

http://qz.com/142199/the-us-needs-to-retire-daylight-savings-and-just-have-two-time-zones-one-hour-apart/

It would seem to be more efficient to do away with the practice altogether. The actual energy savings are minimal, if they exist at all. Frequent and uncoordinated time changes cause confusion, undermining economic efficiency. There’s evidence that regularly changing sleep cycles, associated with daylight saving, lowers productivity and increases heart attacks. Being out of sync with European time changes was projected to cost the airline industry $147 million a year in travel disruptions. But I propose we not only end Daylight Saving, but also take it one step further.

This year, Americans on Eastern Standard Time should set their clocks back one hour (like normal), Americans on Central and Rocky Mountain time do nothing, and Americans on Pacific time should set their clocks forward one hour. After that we won’t change our clocks again – no more daylight saving. This will result in just two time zones for the continental United States. The east and west coasts will only be one hour apart. Anyone who lives on one coast and does business with the other can imagine the uncountable benefits of living in a two-time-zone nation (excluding Alaska and Hawaii)....

It’s true that larger time zones would seem to cheat many people out of daylight by removing them further from their true solar time. But the demands of global commerce already do that. Many people work in companies with remote offices or have clients in different parts of the country. It’s become routine to arrange schedules to coordinate people in multiple domestic time zones. Traders in California start their day at 5am to participate in New York markets. True, not all Californians work on East Coast time, but research by economists Daniel Hamermesh, Catlin Meyers, and Mark Peacock showed communities are more productive when there’s more time coordination. Californians who work on Eastern time require services that can accommodate their schedule and see less of their families on Pacific time....

In 1983, Alaska, which naturally spans four time zones, moved most of the state to a single time zone (except for an Native American reservation near Ketchikan and a few western Aleutian islands). The longitudinal distance of Alaska is nearly equal to the entire continental United States, yet the state functions, albeit with some tension, on one time zone. China has been on one time zone since 1949, despite naturally spanning five time zones.

Thoughts?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. If you're going to do that, then why keep the boundary line that jaggedly zigzags through

5 states in the middle? North and South Dakota, Texas, and what are those other two, Nebraska and Kansas? should all be entirely in the Eastern zone, without small cutout parts of the states being in the Western Zone.

[HassleCat]

5. Why the boundaries are placed that way

The lines are drawn to run through sparsely populated areas. You have metropolitan areas, such as the Fargo-Moorhead metro area that straddles the line between ND and MN, and they need to be in the same time zone.

[elleng]

2. RIGHT!

[HassleCat]

3. A bit of trivia. Religious opposition to time zones.

When time zones were proposed, fundamentalist preachers raged against them, calling them the work of the devil, and warning of plagues if we departed from Sun Time, which was evidently blessed by God. What was Sun Time? It worked on the principle that time in any location should be kept according to the principle that Noon would occur when the sun was directly overhead, or as close as it came to being directly overhead. At its zenith. Anyway, If it was Noon in New York City, it might be 10:49 AM in Cleveland, 9:03 AM in Chicago, 8:21 AM in Denver, and 7:51 AM in Los Angeles. (I made up these times. You can figure out the real sun times by using a sunrise calculator and converting to UTC for each location, then plotting the differences.)

Your proposal for two times zones makes sense, particularly in terms of reducing the time difference between the two coasts.

[Jim Beard]

23. I have heard it was the railroads that wanted the present time zones.

I don't think they would have approved of day light saving because of the expense of printing new train schedules.

[HassleCat]

25. That's true

As you can imagine, sun time was a nightmare for the railroads, and the big stations had clocks displaying the local times for major stops along the route. Schedules and timetables were incredibly complex. Worst of all, confusion about train movements often caused collisions between trains.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

4. No thanks

It's twice a year; just not that big of a deal.

[davepc]

6. I hate daylight savings. Hate it.

Feel out of synch the entire winter.

[surrealAmerican]

28. Then what you hate is actually Standard Time.

We will switch back to Daylight Savings Time in the spring. It sounds like that's what you'd prefer year-round.

[Still Sensible]

7. I'd simply do away with the changes twice a year and keep daylight savings

year round. I'd change the time zones to match state boundaries, though, to eliminate the strange, jagged zones. The only state where that would be a significant problem would be Texas, which I would leave in the Central zone.

[Egnever]

8. Well hell why stop there

Since this is all predicated on the idea that global business is what is important, why not just have one time zone and be done with it?

[Chan790]

13. I'm in favor. I'd go further.

I think the idea of time zones is one that outlived usefulness. As much as possible, I do everything on GMT and a 24-hour clock. It would be far more useful if everybody globally was on one time-standard.

I'd know my grocer opened at 9:00 and closed at 20:00, that my cousin in Las Vegas typically gets out of bed at 12:00 and goes to bed at 1:15, that the Nikkei opened at 12:00 for the day and closed at 19:00, that my sister-in-law visiting India is having lunch at 15:00, and so on. A single global time-standard is a better model for life and business.

There is no reason to use time zones at all unless you're starting from the mindset that the sun needs to rise at ~6:00am and set ~5:00-8:00pm in local time in most places. It seems that abandoning time zones would solve more problems than it would create and the current system tolerates as quirks. There would be a need to adapt but I think most people would do so naturally within a few weeks.

[SwissTony]

17. But then 2:00 pm has competely different meanings in different parts of the world.

I've taken part in teleconferences involving people in Australia, Europe and the US - at the same time!! So, 2:00pm in London is much, much "later" in Australia than in London, with the reverse applying, for example, in the US. As an Aussie, I've had to go back to work late at night while our American colleagues were getting up very early.

So "2:00 pm" is not just a label, it provides information about what can be reasonably expected from someone living in a certain part of the world.

But daylight saving should be dumped.

Here's that well known philosopher John Oliver on the subject...

[Chan790]

24. I'm getting rid of PM too...but I see your point kinda.

I just don't think it'll have that impact past the initial adaptation period. In time, you'll stop thinking of time as local time...you'll know your date starts at say 9:00 and ends at 5:00 while the guy in the US's day starts at 4:00 and ends at 12:00. What conflict there is with people's work-schedules not lining up in international business has always existed and will continue to exist.

What doesn't exist is the confusion that what is very late in one place isn't very late in another. Coordinating international business isn't ever going to be easy but it's a lot easier with everybody on the same clock and knowing that their day starts and ends at different points of the universal clock than your own does. It also better recognizes the reality of a 24-hour day as a business cycle. The current system is a relic of a day when all business was, for the most part, local business.

It may also have the added benefit of shifting how people view the "work-day"...whether it's 9:00am EDT or 14:00 (same time), scheduling may become less rigid and better recognize even locally the reality that everybody's work day probably shouldn't be the same time-frame. It would certainly do a lot to reduce gridlock.

[SwissTony]

27. I see your point too.

It's just that we'd have to have a parallel time function which tells us what my friend in San Francisco/Shanghai/Munich would be doing when world time is 14:00. So, in a sense, we'd still have the old clock.

"The current system is a relic of a day when all business was, for the most part, local business." Yep, no argument about that. If you're a corporation. And most international business is between corporations and other corporations/individuals (Amazon keeps taking money from my credit card - but they do send books and CDs). But even international business has some time "restrictions". People in a New York/London company have (hopefully) a home life. I know many people don't have a 9-5 lifestyle (been there etc). But people have other commitments - SOs, kids, study etc.

[IDemo]

9. Myths and truths about Daylight Saving Time

Ready or not, Daylight Saving Time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday.

Loved by some, loathed by many, our biannual clock twirling ritual has wide-ranging and often surprising implications.

From energy use to our very health, here's a look at some of the mythology and facts surrounding DST.

http://www.ktvq.com/story/30400713/myths-and-truths-about-daylight-saving-time

[Jim Beard]

10. I hate it too but it is in the summer I hate it the most. I live on the Western edge of a time zone

Last edited Mon Nov 2, 2015, 04:31 PM - Edit history (1)

and it really sucks in the summer if you work out doors. My god, its still light at 10pm but to my neighbors 50 miles to the west in a different time zone, its dark when the get off work in the Winter.

Leave it ALONE. Go back to standard time and stay there.

[Retrograde]

11. Why stop at two? Why not just one time zone?

Like China? The problem is that the earth is going to continue to rotate at the same speed, and people on the West Coast are still going to be getting up in the dark to deal with the East Coast.

[brooklynite]

12. I say, make DST permanent...

...I want it dark in the morning when I'm sleeping and light as much as possible when I'm done with work.

[we can do it]

20. Me too.

[snooper2]

14. Every year a very small number of people bitch about DST

LOL...

cracks me up- Deal with it!

Everyone in the bar on Saturday night enjoys the extra hour before doors close

[B2G]

15. And I think you're all being ridiculous

As someone who frequently has to fly from coast to coast, complaining about a ONE hour time change twice a year cracks me up.

Some of you would never survive in a job that requires travel.

[KamaAina]

16. I used to fly from Hawai'i to the East Coast once or twice a year

that's five -- or six, depending on the time of year -- time zones.

[LanternWaste]

21. one may live in the desert and yet still complain about heat...

I'm pretty sure that simple concerns and complaints about a thing rarely, if ever, indicate one's ability to navigate or survive that thing effectively. No doubt, one may live in the desert and yet still complain about heat.

The self-validating pretense needed for your premise is what cracks me up...

[Orrex]

18. I'm one of those people who simply can't tolerate Daylight Saving Time

I spend November 1 through March 8 screaming in the forest, and then from March 8 through November 1, I shriek in the streets.


Because how else might a functional adult might be expected to cope with the truama of adjusting a clock not once but TWICE each year.

The horror! The horror!

[hunter]

19. Time zones mean nothing to me. I travel as the Tardis takes me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TARDIS

[LanternWaste]

22. We need to stop interfering with imaginary constructs and measurements.

We need to stop interfering with imaginary constructs and measurements. The interference makes the imaginary seem more mythical and fanciful... and how can we then place our faith in, predicate our daily decisions on, and in fact, base entire aspects of our lives on something that's merely made up?

[The2ndWheel]

30. Agreed. Clocks and calendars are the worst inventions.

[Travis_0004]

26. I would be pissed if DST was eliminated

I would support year round DST though.

[d_r]

29. I think this may be

the ultimate flyover state -ism

[Jim Beard]

31. I rarely say much about it much anymore.

I hate it but it really depends where you live and your preferences. A lot of it depends where you live, children and life styles. But the people who want it most are the disappearing brick & mortar stores.