Proof daylight saving time is dumb, dangerous, and costly | Hacker News Reader

Proof daylight saving time is dumb, dangerous, and costly

bostonglobe.com

19 pointsd0ugie10 comments

As Hawaii and Arizona show, the US government gives states a choice as to whether to adopt daylight saving time. But states aren’t currently allowed to switch to daylight saving time year-round.

I didn't know that states couldn't choose permanent daylight savings time. That might explain the hesitation to get rid of time changes...if it means being stuck with dark evenings all year round, I wouldn't want to change either. I want daylight savings all year round.

A state can't choose permanent daylight savings time, but Arizona, for example, could be said to be on permanent Pacific Daylight Time. Sure, they call it Mountain Standard Time, but it's year round UTC-7 either way.

> A bill signed by Governor Charlie Baker in August included a provision establishing a task force to study if Massachusetts should leave Eastern Standard Time behind. The commission would analyze putting the state on Atlantic Standard Time throughout the year, rather than springing forward every March and falling back every November.

I don't understand how the statement you quoted works with the statement I quoted. Is the task force to analyze the impact of doing something that the state isn't even allowed to do?

States can't go on permanent daylight savings, but they can go on permanent standard time and they can choose which zone they are in.

The effect of permanent standard time one zone east is the same as that of permanent daylight time in the original zone.

What I don't get about this idea is that it would put Massachusetts in a very strange place - if you left the state in any direction in the winter you'd drop back an hour. Is the idea that Massachusetts is powerful enough in New England that the rest of the New England states would go along? (Just under half the population of New England lives in Massachusetts, so this isn't entirely far-fetched.)

I can't imagine all of Connecticut would go along, though. It wouldn't surprise me if eastern CT went with Boston time while western CT went with New York time, following roughly the Red Sox - Yankees border.

I've seen reports of other states on the Eastern Seaboard considering the same thing (I remember Maine specifically, but I think there were more.)

This article reports on a New Hampshire proposal: whttp://www.concordmonitor.com/time-zone-Atlantic-bill-754516...

And this one on a Rhode Island proposal: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/03/11/will-new-englan...

Both explicitly require Massachusetts to go first.

Maine has been considering it for longer (which makes sense, as it's further east), since 2005, according to this story: https://bangordailynews.com/2017/01/19/politics/state-house/... . The proposals there don't seem to be contingent on Massachusetts making the first move.

I couldn't find any references to proposals in Vermont or Connecticut.

It seems like the rationale for DST no longer applies to countries with electricity, economies beyond farming, and workplaces without incandescent lighting. Regardless, every office I've worked at runs the lights all day anyway. I would think that air conditioning costs much more than running the LED lights we have in our offices today.

Is there still a compelling case for keeping DST?

Those people in the comments that want permanent daylight saving: it's easy - leave you clocks on standard time and just get up an hour earlier every day!

(One day I'm going to move to the country and set my clocks to local mean time, and rise at dawn, go to bed soon after sunset, and adopt a biphasic sleep pattern where I get up in the middle of the night to watch the stars.)

Sheesh! This is nothing more than a rant. Does the Boston Globe always present opinion pieces like this as news?

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