Photograph Source: Qwexcxewq – CC BY 4.0
On December 13, president-elect Donald Trump pledged on Truth Social that in his coming term the Republican Party will “use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time.”
It’s not very often I agree with US presidents, but I like to give credit where credit is due, and I’m 100% with Trump on this. It’s long past time to end the semi-annual American ritual of “springing forward” and “falling back.”
Trump characterizes that ritual as “inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation.” He’s right on both counts.
Every year, twice a year, Americans’ bodies spend days or weeks adjusting to a sudden one-hour real (as opposed to clock-designated) change in when we go to bed and when we get up.
That’s both annoying and costly.
Less annoying in the age of “everything connected to the Internet” than it was back in the days when every clock in the house had to be manually adjusted, but still annoying … and annoying in different ways to different people.
I know people who prefer their daylight “early” (for example, because they’re driving to work at 7am). They’d prefer to end Daylight Saving time and remain on “standard” time.
I know people who prefer their daylight “late” (I’m one of them — if I have outside work to do at home, I prefer to do it in the evening). They’d prefer that the current Daylight Saving Time become “standard” time year-round.
I don’t know anyone who likes hopping back and forth. If the idea ever made any sense, back when not everyone had electric lighting, farming wasn’t very industrialized, and most businesses ran fixed daytime shifts, it stopped making that kind of sense a long time ago.
As for the practice being “costly,” some economic analyses do posit costs to businesses — higher utility bills, etc. — from the changes, but the most obvious cost is counted in human life.
“Springing forward” results, according to a 2016 study, in an average of 30 extra deaths in car accidents each year — exactly the outcome one might expect from millions of tired drivers with discombobulated circadian rhythms getting behind the wheel when it SHOULD be daylight but is instead still dark.
That cost in human life has economic consequences as well. According to the National Safety Council, each car crash death comes with various costs to various parties totaling $1.869 million. Traffic fatalities from “springing forward” cost $56 million every year. Injuries and “fender bender” costs probably total far more.
By comparison to a century, or even a few decades, ago, America has become a flexible 24/7 society rather than a said daylight-to-dark society. Having the government dictate clock setting changes makes that fluidity more annoying, costly, and dangerous. Pick a standard and stick to it year-round.
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