Daylight Saving Time
So - as it currently stands in many countries, the clocks advance one hour in the Summer so that we gain an extra hour in the evenings.
The EU are proposing that this practice stops in Spring of 2021. That is to say, clocks will go forward and not change again in the Autumn.
This raises two questions:
1. Do you think it should be stopped ?
2. Where do you think time should lie ?
Personally, if it is to stop, we think it should be left on Winter time. That is to say, let the clocks revert in Autumn 2020 (or 2019) and leave it at that. Otherwise we will be on false time.
Although modern DST has only been used for about 100 years, ancient civilizations are known to have engaged in comparable practices thousands of years ago. For example, the Roman water clocks used different scales for different months of the year to adjust the daily schedules to the solar time.
There is a tremendous difference in the apparent time of day depending on your locale. I grew up on the western edge of the eastern time zone & recently moved to the eastern edge of the central...my body clock won't adjust!!!That said...I thought if standard time was moved up 30 minutes and left there...it wouldn't mess with folks too much and you'd still have a little extra spare time at the end of the day.
First they should have called it Daylight USEFUL Time. Then maybe folks would understand. It shifts the daylight to a more useful time of day. I think we should shift and stay on it year round. In the winter we would have an hour of sun in the evening. It is dark in the morning no matter what time you set the clock.
The switch always messes with my work schedule and it takes several days to a few weeks to get my mind readjusted to it. I really wish they'd quit switching it back and forth. But I don't care where it's left, just quit messing with it. Last fall I didn't even change my clock, now we're almost to the spring switch back and my clock will be back on time again.
I really don't care whether we use standard time or daylight, but I want the clock changing to stop. To add to the stupidity we have two time zones in Michigan. The four counties that border Wisconsin are on central time because we do a lot of business with Wisconsin as the argument goes. So now we have a time difference with the rest of Michigan and some of the eastern zone counties are farther west than three of the central zone counties. When I worked in the central part of the upper peninsula, I did most of my business with Wisconsin, I eastern and Wisconsin central. It was also fun when I lived in Southwest lower Michigan and Indiana did not change.
First they should have called it Daylight USEFUL Time. Then maybe folks would understand. It shifts the daylight to a more useful time of day. I think we should shift and stay on it year round. In the winter we would have an hour of sun in the evening. It is dark in the morning no matter what time you set the clock.
You're completely correct. Except I wouldn't shift the clocks, rather the working day.
See, from what I can make out, Winter time is the correct time. That is, Noon in Winter is when the sun is at it's highest point int he sky. Whereas Noon in Summer is actually 1pm Winter time. (I know it's a bit more complicated than that.)
So for that reason I would leave time on true Solar Time.
To gain the sunlight at the end of the day, which most seem to agree is most useful, I would just shift the working day. So make that we start work at 7am and finish at 3pm. Assuing your working day is currently 9-5. Obviously other types of day shifts should move accordingly.
I'm going to argue that safety is an issue.
I ride my bike around town. I can't tell you how many people just don't look for pedestrians or bikers. It's bad. But it's way worse in twilight or dark. I have a blazing white light on my bike. A guy almost kills me and claims that he couldn't see me because I had dark clothing on, (I had light clothing that was sweaty, so I guess that's how he got dark). I motioned to the light and said what did you think the light was? He just drove away. Anyway. yes, the clocks moving to provide more daylight time during "working" hours does improve safety on the streets from my aspect.
Also, I don't know where you are from but in the cities I live in, if your child lives within a mile from the school, they are expected to be walkers, (not the kind in Left for Dead --- although they kind of look like it as the hoard of children move towards the school in the morning).