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With the looming Daylight Saving Time cruelty of losing an hour descending upon us a mere week from now, it is worth noting that Texas has again introduced bills to abolish it in the Lone Star State.
For the 2019 Texas Legislature, House Bill 49 and Senate Bill 190 have been filed, with both being referred to the House and Senate State Affairs Committees.
The bills would exempt Texas from daylight saving time, including the portion of the state in Mountain Standard Time.
Arizona and Hawaii are the only two states that have opted out of Daylight Saving Time currently. New Mexico is also currently considering legislation to stop switching, with the House attempting to end DST and the Senate attempting to switch to it permanently.
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[Ed. addition] Properly, DST is not "Daylight Savings Time"; it is "Daylight Saving Time". It has been so often misused, however, that it has become common usage. Also, Wikipedia's entry on Daylight Saving Time notes a tidbit I found interesting:
The time at which clocks are to be shifted differs across jurisdictions. The European Union has a coordinated shift, shifting all zones at the same instant, at 01:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which means that it changes at 02:00 Central European Time (CET) or 03:00 Eastern European Time (EET), the result is that the time differences across European time zone remain constant.[41][42] North America shifts at 02:00 but at the local time and is consequently uncoordinated so that, for example, Mountain Time is, for one hour, zero hours ahead of Pacific Time instead of one hour ahead in the autumn and two hours instead of one ahead of Pacific Time in the spring.
The dates on which clocks are to be shifted also vary with location and year; consequently, the time differences between regions also vary throughout the year. For example, Central European Time is usually six hours ahead North American Eastern Time, except for a few weeks in March and October/November, while the United Kingdom and mainland Chile could be five hours apart during the northern summer, three hours during the southern summer, and four hours a few weeks per year. Since 1996, European Summer Time has been observed from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October; previously the rules were not uniform across the European Union.[42] Starting in 2007, most of the United States and Canada observe DST from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November, almost two-thirds of the year.[43] Moreover, the beginning and ending dates are roughly reversed between the northern and southern hemispheres because spring and autumn are displaced six months. For example, mainland Chile observes DST from the second Saturday in October to the second Saturday in March, with transitions at 24:00 local time.[44] In some countries time is governed by regional jurisdictions within the country so that some jurisdictions shift and others do not; this is currently the case in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and the United States.[45][46]
(Score: 4, Informative) by SemperOSS on Tuesday March 05 2019, @10:44PM (5 children)
Daylight Saving Time is based on the wrong assumption that it actually would save fuel and was first implemented by Germany and Austria during World War I. It had and has nothing to do with people's well-being. Unfortunately — as someone else has pointed out with an appropriate link — it does not save fuel ... and it does definitely not increase people's well-being. Several studies have shown increased mortality in the periods just after the time changes, e.g. Daylight Saving Time Transitions, Incidence and In-Hospital Mortality of Ischemic Stroke [neurology.org].
People working in the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK work to their appointed hours without getting compensation nor deductions, even if they work a shift crossing from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT — the same as UTC) to British Summer Time (BST) or vice versa. This means that somebody working a 12-hour shift can be working 11 hours for 12 hours pay (yay!) when the clock changes from GMT to BST and 13 hours, still for 12 hours pay (nay!), when the clock changes from BST back to GMT. This can be very stressful, especially if you work as a paramedic in an ambulance. The idea is that this will even out over the years as you may work the 11-hour shift one year but the 13-hour shift the next year. This is, apart from exhaustion of the long shift, probably not a big problem for people that stay for years in the service but can be unfair for people working in the 111 service or similar jobs where people turn-over is very high — in the order of average employment time being around three to six months, if I remember correctly.
Personally I think that the UK should just stay on BST all year round. It means that the winters are going to be a bit more dreary but I can live with that for the benefit of longer summer evenings. I always find the first week or so after changing to summer time very difficult. If constant BST is not an option, then make it constant GMT instead — just do not change the clock any more ... Please! Staying on BST would also mean that the UK would be aligned with the rest of Europe if they stay on Central European Time (CET).
I don't need a signature to draw attention to myself.
Maybe I should add a sarcasm warning now and again?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday March 06 2019, @12:24AM (2 children)
Of course, France and Spain are clearly in the wrong time zone, and they should move to GMT.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by SemperOSS on Wednesday March 06 2019, @12:22PM (1 child)
First and foremost, I want the UK to scrap DST and the changing the clocks twice a year. So now the clocks are not changing it is just a matter of selecting what time zone to belong to. I would prefer to be in the same time zone as the rest of Europe as it would make my personal life easier (often working at home for companies working in the CET time zone, which is bummer for two reasons: they are not only ahead one hour but many places work 8-16 instead of 9-17, which is the norm of UK, meaning I have to be in phone/video meetings when the rest of the family is trying to get ready for work/school) and because I prefer the extended days of summer. Should the UK not want to go permanently on BST/CET/UTC+1, I will settle for permanently staying on GMT/UTC — which, incidentally, would be a more probable outcome, the British being, er, British. Anyhow, the main purpose is to scrap the clock changes.
I don't need a signature to draw attention to myself.
Maybe I should add a sarcasm warning now and again?
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Wednesday March 06 2019, @06:42PM
Put me down for Britain being on UTC. I mean, they invented it, they should have to live with it.
Also, it would make intuitive sense that Greenwich be on Greenwich Mean Time (as approximated by UTC, of course).
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Wednesday March 06 2019, @01:55AM (1 child)
Daylight Saving was not created to save fuel. It was created to 'normalise' the time that the sun comes up each day. This was largely irrelevant in the pre-industrial era - people got up with the sun and did their work. That meant they woke up earlier in Summer and later in Winter. Once set working hours were introduced (e.g. 9-5), people noticed that it was harder to consistently get up at the same time each day. Turns out, your body attunes fairly finely with sunrise (it either consistently likes to wake up just before, just after, well after etc).
By introducing Daylight Saving, sunrise is shifted back closer to a person's typical "winter" waking hours (i.e. you have moved working hours back to be closer to dawn during summer so that there is roughly the same amount of time between dawn and 'start of work' through the year) . This has the added effect of providing extra post-work sunlight hours, but that's not the intent.
(Score: 2) by SemperOSS on Wednesday March 06 2019, @12:31PM
Not historically, really. DST may not have been proposed by Hudson or Willett as a means to save fuel, but the first adoption of it was by Germany and Austria-Hungary during World War I, and the reason for it was to save coal, i.e. fuel.
I don't need a signature to draw attention to myself.
Maybe I should add a sarcasm warning now and again?