Senate passes bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent...

[Tennesseer]

Senate passes bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent starting in 2023

Washington — The Senate on Tuesday unanimously approved a bill that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent beginning in November 2023, a significant leap forward in the push to ensure an extra hour of sunlight at the end of the day all year round.

The bill, known as the Sunshine Protection Act, earned 17 cosponsors from both parties in the upper chamber and was passed by unanimous consent. Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, has long been a proponent of making the clock change permanent and led the push to pass the bill.

"The good news is if we can get this passed, we don't have to keep doing this stupidity anymore," Rubio said on the Senate floor. "Hopefully this is the year that this gets done and, pardon the pun, but this is an idea whose time has come."

Rubio pointed to research showing that an extra hour of sunlight later in the day leads to reduced crime levels, a decrease in seasonal depression and more time for children to play outside.

"What ends up happening is, especially for these 16 weeks of the year, if you don't have a park or an outdoor facility with lights, you're basically shut down around 5 p.m., in some cases 4 or 4:30 p.m.," he said. "These lights in parks and things like that are expensive, and a lot of communities are resistant to them."

Daylight Saving Time currently begins the second weekend of March and ends the first weekend of November. The federal government last extended that period by four weeks in 2007. Rubio said his bill delays the change until 2023 to accommodate airlines and other industries who set their schedules far in advance.

The bill passed by the Senate must still be approved by the House and signed by the president to become law. An identical version of the bill has been introduced in the House and was referred to a subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce last month. Experts who testified before the subcommittee in a hearing last week urged lawmakers to make the change.

"Simply put, darkness kills. And darkness in the evening is far deadlier than darkness in the morning," University of Washington professor Steve Calandrillo said. "The evening rush hour is twice as fatal as the morning for various reasons — far more people are on the road, more alcohol is in drivers' bloodstream, people are hurrying to get home, and more children are enjoying outdoor, unsupervised play."

Senate passes bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent starting in 2023

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

Oh, thank goodness. I really hope this becomes a reality.

[daisylu]

[teen persuasion]

I understand people hate the change. But permanent Daylight Savings Time is not the answer.

There is no way you can have sunrise at/after 8:30 am most of the winter, with school children walking to school or waiting for busses in the dark. As it is, we were *just* getting to a decent sunrise time (for school bus pickup and morning commute), and the new/improved DST made it dark, again. Too soon!

If you want to stay the same, go back to standard time, year round. Kids complain about not being able to go to sleep in the summer, with twilight extending past 9 pm, anyway. If it goes back to 8 pm ish, that's reasonable.

And that argument about driving in the dark in the morning being less dangerous than in the dark evening is suspect. The problem is dark morning in the winter - it's always coldest in the morning, and road conditions are markedly worse before the sun comes up and the day warms things up. I've been doing a dual commute this year - at 7:45 driving DS4 to work, then at 9:45 my own commute. The early drive is often icy, but the later one is much better for the few hours more of sunshine. Or, this morning it was fog. And dodging deer the day before.

[raeoflyte]

Mar 16, 2022 20:00:06 GMT -5 teen persuasion said:

I understand people hate the change. But permanent Daylight Savings Time is not the answer.

There is no way you can have sunrise at/after 8:30 am most of the winter, with school children walking to school or waiting for busses in the dark. As it is, we were *just* getting to a decent sunrise time (for school bus pickup and morning commute), and the new/improved DST made it dark, again. Too soon!

If you want to stay the same, go back to standard time, year round. Kids complain about not being able to go to sleep in the summer, with twilight extending past 9 pm, anyway. If it goes back to 8 pm ish, that's reasonable.

And that argument about driving in the dark in the morning being less dangerous than in the dark evening is suspect. The problem is dark morning in the winter - it's always coldest in the morning, and road conditions are markedly worse before the sun comes up and the day warms things up. I've been doing a dual commute this year - at 7:45 driving DS4 to work, then at 9:45 my own commute. The early drive is often icy, but the later one is much better for the few hours more of sunshine. Or, this morning it was fog. And dodging deer the day before.

100% agree. I don't think most people realize or have thought about what it would be like to not have sunrise until 830-9am.

[dondub]

Mar 16, 2022 20:00:06 GMT -5 teen persuasion said:

I understand people hate the change. But permanent Daylight Savings Time is not the answer.

There is no way you can have sunrise at/after 8:30 am most of the winter, with school children walking to school or waiting for busses in the dark. As it is, we were *just* getting to a decent sunrise time (for school bus pickup and morning commute), and the new/improved DST made it dark, again. Too soon!

If you want to stay the same, go back to standard time, year round. Kids complain about not being able to go to sleep in the summer, with twilight extending past 9 pm, anyway. If it goes back to 8 pm ish, that's reasonable.

And that argument about driving in the dark in the morning being less dangerous than in the dark evening is suspect. The problem is dark morning in the winter - it's always coldest in the morning, and road conditions are markedly worse before the sun comes up and the day warms things up. I've been doing a dual commute this year - at 7:45 driving DS4 to work, then at 9:45 my own commute. The early drive is often icy, but the later one is much better for the few hours more of sunshine. Or, this morning it was fog. And dodging deer the day before.

I will miss our 10pm sunsets over the Olympics.

[wvugurl26]

I don't really care about the mornings. If it's bad, we would not go in the office. Before covid I was going to sit at a windowless cubicle so it didn't matter a damn bit what time the sun came up. It was dark when I walked in at 7am and dark when I walked out at 4:30pm in the worst of winter.

I'd rather have more daylight in the afternoon/evening hours. Those are hours I can actually benefit from. 5/7 days I'm sitting in front of a laptop in the morning. I'd rather the sun come up later, it helps me sleep longer.

[raeoflyte]

Sleep experts agree! Standard time instead of dst. Unfortunately I'm not sure this is a train we can stop at this point.

www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/03/16/daylight-saving-bill-health-effects/

[chiver78]

Mar 16, 2022 20:00:06 GMT -5 teen persuasion said:

I understand people hate the change. But permanent Daylight Savings Time is not the answer.

There is no way you can have sunrise at/after 8:30 am most of the winter, with school children walking to school or waiting for busses in the dark. As it is, we were *just* getting to a decent sunrise time (for school bus pickup and morning commute), and the new/improved DST made it dark, again. Too soon!

If you want to stay the same, go back to standard time, year round. Kids complain about not being able to go to sleep in the summer, with twilight extending past 9 pm, anyway. If it goes back to 8 pm ish, that's reasonable.

And that argument about driving in the dark in the morning being less dangerous than in the dark evening is suspect. The problem is dark morning in the winter - it's always coldest in the morning, and road conditions are markedly worse before the sun comes up and the day warms things up. I've been doing a dual commute this year - at 7:45 driving DS4 to work, then at 9:45 my own commute. The early drive is often icy, but the later one is much better for the few hours more of sunshine. Or, this morning it was fog. And dodging deer the day before.

you must be on the western edge of a time zone. I'm on the far eastern end of a time zone, and in the winter it's dusk at 2:30-3pm or so. that's not good, either. 

[teen persuasion]

Mar 17, 2022 9:01:04 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

Mar 16, 2022 20:00:06 GMT -5 teen persuasion said:

I understand people hate the change. But permanent Daylight Savings Time is not the answer.

There is no way you can have sunrise at/after 8:30 am most of the winter, with school children walking to school or waiting for busses in the dark. As it is, we were *just* getting to a decent sunrise time (for school bus pickup and morning commute), and the new/improved DST made it dark, again. Too soon!

If you want to stay the same, go back to standard time, year round. Kids complain about not being able to go to sleep in the summer, with twilight extending past 9 pm, anyway. If it goes back to 8 pm ish, that's reasonable.

And that argument about driving in the dark in the morning being less dangerous than in the dark evening is suspect. The problem is dark morning in the winter - it's always coldest in the morning, and road conditions are markedly worse before the sun comes up and the day warms things up. I've been doing a dual commute this year - at 7:45 driving DS4 to work, then at 9:45 my own commute. The early drive is often icy, but the later one is much better for the few hours more of sunshine. Or, this morning it was fog. And dodging deer the day before.

you must be on the western edge of a time zone. I'm on the far eastern end of a time zone, and in the winter it's dusk at 2:30-3pm or so. that's not good, either. 

Not exactly.  Looking at a time zone map, we are in the middle of the zone in the US.  Following the straight lines in the oceans, we are closer to a western border, but still not that close to it.

It's funny how many of the squiggly time zone borders skew west. 

A discussion of this on Twitter mentioned repeatedly that NE states want to join the time zone to their east.

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

Ultimately it will be impossible to please everyone. I foresee the far right politicizing this as some kind of conspiracy.

[chiver78]

Mar 17, 2022 9:21:37 GMT -5 teen persuasion said:

Mar 17, 2022 9:01:04 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

you must be on the western edge of a time zone. I'm on the far eastern end of a time zone, and in the winter it's dusk at 2:30-3pm or so. that's not good, either. 

Not exactly.  Looking at a time zone map, we are in the middle of the zone in the US.  Following the straight lines in the oceans, we are closer to a western border, but still not that close to it.

It's funny how many of the squiggly time zone borders skew west. 

A discussion of this on Twitter mentioned repeatedly that NE states want to join the time zone to their east.

I would LOVE it if we moved to Atlantic Time. 

[teen persuasion]

Mar 17, 2022 8:58:17 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Sleep experts agree! Standard time instead of dst. Unfortunately I'm not sure this is a train we can stop at this point.

www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/03/16/daylight-saving-bill-health-effects/

I agree, we might be too late to stop a unanimous decision.  Congress finally finds one thing it can work together on, and this is it?

Lots of the discussion on Twitter was from parents, students, and teachers - all of whom hate the early start for teens, especially. 

If this is a done deal, then shifting school schedules may finally get reworked. Sleep experts kept saying teens naturally sleep later than younger kids, so HS times should reflect that, but tradition and inertia kept things the same. A shakeup like this might wear down resistance.

As was frequently mentioned - time is all a construct, anyway. Why are we stuck on school starts at 7:30 (or whatever)?

[raeoflyte]

Mar 17, 2022 10:50:06 GMT -5 teen persuasion said:

Mar 17, 2022 8:58:17 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Sleep experts agree! Standard time instead of dst. Unfortunately I'm not sure this is a train we can stop at this point.

www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/03/16/daylight-saving-bill-health-effects/

I agree, we might be too late to stop a unanimous decision.  Congress finally finds one thing it can work together on, and this is it?

Lots of the discussion on Twitter was from parents, students, and teachers - all of whom hate the early start for teens, especially. 

If this is a done deal, then shifting school schedules may finally get reworked. Sleep experts kept saying teens naturally sleep later than younger kids, so HS times should reflect that, but tradition and inertia kept things the same. A shakeup like this might wear down resistance.

As was frequently mentioned - time is all a construct, anyway. Why are we stuck on school starts at 7:30 (or whatever)?

Our school has switched things as much as they can. Elementary starts at 8, middle school at 9 and high-school at 830. They would have preferred high-school to start latest but it didn't work with sports.

Dst means Elementary kids at bus stops in the dark, so they'd probably swap higschool and Elementary. Better for kids 14+ sitting outside in the dark, regardless of science and natural sleep schedules. :/

[pulmonarymd]

Permanent dst here means the sun comes up after 8 in the middle of the winter and the sun goes down just after 5. Rush hour is dark one of the ways. Doesn’t seem like a worthwhile trade off. Kids will be waiting for the bus in the dark. Permanent standard time means the sun comes up at 4:30 in the summer with sunset before 8. Would rather be on Atlantic time if this is done

[chiver78]

Mar 17, 2022 21:13:29 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Mar 17, 2022 10:50:06 GMT -5 teen persuasion said:

I agree, we might be too late to stop a unanimous decision.  Congress finally finds one thing it can work together on, and this is it?

Lots of the discussion on Twitter was from parents, students, and teachers - all of whom hate the early start for teens, especially. 

If this is a done deal, then shifting school schedules may finally get reworked. Sleep experts kept saying teens naturally sleep later than younger kids, so HS times should reflect that, but tradition and inertia kept things the same. A shakeup like this might wear down resistance.

As was frequently mentioned - time is all a construct, anyway. Why are we stuck on school starts at 7:30 (or whatever)?

Our school has switched things as much as they can. Elementary starts at 8, middle school at 9 and high-school at 830. They would have preferred high-school to start latest but it didn't work with sports.

Dst means Elementary kids at bus stops in the dark, so they'd probably swap higschool and Elementary. Better for kids 14+ sitting outside in the dark, regardless of science and natural sleep schedules. :/

I don't have kids, so this particular post is based on my own childhood. I'll admit that is a bit outdated. but, it came to mind when I read this post. we had HS start first, middle next, then elementary. the same held for the afternoon, in the name of having older kids home before the younger ones. I guess the thought was the parent leaving the latchkey kids would wait for the youngest to board the bus before heading out for their own workday?   I actually see this again now, with the family across the street. Mom doesn't leave til the younger kid boards the bus, but she doesn't get home til after 5. but the older kid is home before the younger. 

[pulmonarymd]

Same here. Same logic. Older kids watch younger kids. Unless we do something about childcare, that is likely the way it stays

[teen persuasion]

This tweet from Washington Post has a neat graphic showing sunrise times thruout the year for US timezones, if this goes through. Hope the animation plays here.

[raeoflyte]

Mar 17, 2022 21:38:16 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

Mar 17, 2022 21:13:29 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Our school has switched things as much as they can. Elementary starts at 8, middle school at 9 and high-school at 830. They would have preferred high-school to start latest but it didn't work with sports.

Dst means Elementary kids at bus stops in the dark, so they'd probably swap higschool and Elementary. Better for kids 14+ sitting outside in the dark, regardless of science and natural sleep schedules. :/

I don't have kids, so this particular post is based on my own childhood. I'll admit that is a bit outdated. but, it came to mind when I read this post. we had HS start first, middle next, then elementary. the same held for the afternoon, in the name of having older kids home before the younger ones. I guess the thought was the parent leaving the latchkey kids would wait for the youngest to board the bus before heading out for their own workday?   I actually see this again now, with the family across the street. Mom doesn't leave til the younger kid boards the bus, but she doesn't get home til after 5. but the older kid is home before the younger. 

Our district changed based on studies that teens sleep best in the morning, learning better with later start times and younger kids learn better early in the morning.

[chiver78]

Mar 17, 2022 21:51:47 GMT -5 teen persuasion said:

This tweet from Washington Post has a neat graphic showing sunrise times thruout the year for US timezones, if this goes through. Hope the animation plays here.

it did. and thank you! I'm personally a proponent of whatever mechanism necessary to prevent twilight at 3pm in my winter days. be it permanent DST, shifting New England to AST, I don't really care. shifting us to AST makes more sense, but I'll acquiesce to permanent DST where I live in my own time zone. I didn't realize how isolating it is, to not go out after dark, until COVID. and when I have work calls during all daylight hours? last winter was incredibly rough for me. keeping things as they are is not a good idea, where I live. 

[teen persuasion]

Mar 17, 2022 21:38:16 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

Mar 17, 2022 21:13:29 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Our school has switched things as much as they can. Elementary starts at 8, middle school at 9 and high-school at 830. They would have preferred high-school to start latest but it didn't work with sports.

Dst means Elementary kids at bus stops in the dark, so they'd probably swap higschool and Elementary. Better for kids 14+ sitting outside in the dark, regardless of science and natural sleep schedules. :/

I don't have kids, so this particular post is based on my own childhood. I'll admit that is a bit outdated. but, it came to mind when I read this post. we had HS start first, middle next, then elementary. the same held for the afternoon, in the name of having older kids home before the younger ones. I guess the thought was the parent leaving the latchkey kids would wait for the youngest to board the bus before heading out for their own workday?   I actually see this again now, with the family across the street. Mom doesn't leave til the younger kid boards the bus, but she doesn't get home til after 5. but the older kid is home before the younger. 

Yes, our district has said older kids must have earlier bus runs, so older siblings are home for younger kids in the afternoon.

Our current schedule has HS and MS riding together (share a campus, too) for the first bus run; school starts at 7:27.  ES bus run is afterwards; school starts after 9am, which makes it challenging for parents who start work before that.  There's no early drop-off - kids wait on the bus until school opens.

HS/MS end at 2:35, but there's a 10th period afterwards for Academic Intervention, so there's also 4 late busses (N,S,W,E) for those kids + BOCES (like DS5) who get back late, + club meetings.  Sports are even later, but sports busses got cut years ago.  And when you get to musical season, like now, kids are easily staying at school until nearly 10pm.  A 6:30 am bus pickup to 10 pm is a LONG school day (and those teens are NOT at home to get ES kids off the bus).

Sports is a big driver of the timing of classes, because of the need to coordinate multiple districts for meets.  If one district switches to a later school start/end time, they might not be able to make meets with other schools ending earlier.  And BOCES throws its weight around - they basically forced all of the districts to follow their desired calendar for breaks.  They wanted a spring break separated from Easter, whether school districts agreed or not.  If a district had a different calendar, they still had to transport students to BOCES classes during the break.  Nobody liked that craziness, so districts reluctantly went along with BOCES's schedule.  So BOCES could also force a start/end time for all the schools participating in a region, too.

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

Mar 17, 2022 21:38:16 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

Mar 17, 2022 21:13:29 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Our school has switched things as much as they can. Elementary starts at 8, middle school at 9 and high-school at 830. They would have preferred high-school to start latest but it didn't work with sports.

Dst means Elementary kids at bus stops in the dark, so they'd probably swap higschool and Elementary. Better for kids 14+ sitting outside in the dark, regardless of science and natural sleep schedules. :/

I don't have kids, so this particular post is based on my own childhood. I'll admit that is a bit outdated. but, it came to mind when I read this post. we had HS start first, middle next, then elementary. the same held for the afternoon, in the name of having older kids home before the younger ones. I guess the thought was the parent leaving the latchkey kids would wait for the youngest to board the bus before heading out for their own workday?   I actually see this again now, with the family across the street. Mom doesn't leave til the younger kid boards the bus, but she doesn't get home til after 5. but the older kid is home before the younger. 

This is kind of the way it was where I grew up also. Interestingly though, middle school was bussed to the high school at the end of the day and kids transferred to their home bus along with the high school kids. There was always a little bit of a wait for the high school classes to end.

[Lizard Queen]

I'm not in favor. Since they moved the time change dates, the mornings are too dark already. It would work to keep the winter hours all year, but then it would be light too damn early.  What would be easier, but make just about everyone howl in outrage, is to do 2 1/2 hour jumps.