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Killing Daylight Saving Time
By Riverboat in Flotsam and Jetsam
March 9, 2008

This is the time of year I'm reminded of the raw power of the federal government's ability to steal anything, including time.

Benjamin Franklin is credited with the idea, but his proposal was intended as satire. That's the problem with irony - people who should know better take you at face value, and pretty soon someone in Congress is trying to pass a tax on items with too much fat.

The Victoria Public Library has a book about this issue - Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Times by Michael Downing. So help me, not only did I check it out and read it, I took notes. 

In 1916, the British parliament was preparing a Daylight Saving law. Britain’s Royal Astronomer tacked on a snippy, humorous amendment: “And let it be further enacted that between the months of October and March the thermometer should be put up ten degrees.”

If you like DST because you get an extra hour to putter about the yard, I can respect that. But the reasons put out by most DST adherents don't hold up. Here are some items I saved from the book. You can find all this on page 142. I'm pretty sure it's available for checkout, so don't take my word for it. 

“Most industry analysts concluded DST a losing proposition. . . The superintendent of schools in Mercer County told the NY Times, 'We use up much more fuel in the coldest part of the day, early morning to get the schools ready to open.'”

Florida recorded that eight schoolchildren were killed during the first month of DST. A spokesman for the Florida Education Department told the NY Times that “six of the deaths clearly attributable to the fact that children were going off to school in darkness.” In Georgia, a pickup truck hit an eight-year-old boy waiting for a school bus; In California during the first three weeks of DST, five school-age children were killed in predawn accidents; Ohio and South Carolina both reported two deaths of school children. At a Congressional hearing held in August 1974, it was reported that ten states had reported increases in traffic fatalities involving school children.

When Congress pressed the Department of Transportation for an analysis of the effectiveness of DST and the conservation of energy, the response was that there was “no appreciable reduction in consumption of gasoline, a possible increase in consumption of heating fuels.”

In other words, DST has been a resounding failure as an energy conservation method. Plus, it's just damned dangerous, at least this early in the year. If they want to go with DST, fine, save it for summertime. What do I care then? Time has no meaning for me for at least three months out of the year.