Daylight Savings - Here’s the deal.
Mark K March 10th, 2008
I wrote yesterday (during my rant) that I would report back today after I did some research about the reasoning behind Daylight Savings time.
First, I asked several people what they thought was the reason that we switch to Daylight Savings time once a year. Here are the answers:
1. After switching to Daylight Savings Time, there are more hours of daylight left when you get off work. This makes it more practical (and tempting) to go shopping. It not only enriches the lives of those who enjoy shopping, but the wallets of those who own the stores.
2. It really makes no sense at all, since you are really not increasing the number of hours of daylight in a day any more than you are increasing the volume of a guitar amplifier by adding the number 11 to the dial.
3. It is supposed to be a way of conserving electricity since you won’t have to turn on the lights in the evening when you are active. However, it has been found that these savings have been matched by increased gas usage (maybe in the morning darkness when people are turning on their heaters?).
4. In the spring and summer, people are more likely to spend time outside because the weather is nicer - Daylight Savings time gives them an extra hour in the evening to take advantage of this. In the winter and fall, it’s dark and cold already and people don’t spend much time outside, so it wouldn’t make sense to have an extra hour of daylight.
5. It actually started in the Middle Ages and was meant to save on the use of candles!
Okay - those are the results of my informal survey. Give me a minute and I will surf the web, consulting other sources to find the true reasons for instituting Daylight Savings Time.
Whew! That was a workout. My head is now bursting with information - probably too much information for the size of my head, but I will do my best to pass along to you the parts that remain there.
1. It seems that Benjamin Franklin - the author of the proverb “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise” first proposed the idea in the 18th century. It seems that he was being a bit of a wise guy, but when he was visiting France he suggested that if the people got up an hour earlier, they would save money on candles by taking advantage of the daylight that they were wasting by remaining in bed with their shutters closed.
2. In 1005, an Englishman by the name of William Willet noticed the same thing and was also unhappy that he had to end his golf rounds in the summertime because it would get dark before he could finish. He suggested the time shift that we now call Daylight Savings time.
3. Germany was the first country to adopt daylight savings time and was soon followed by other European nations and the United States, in 1918. Today, it is popular in most of the countries of the northern regions of the Northern Hemisphere, but isn’t used by most countries of the world.
4. Here are the reasons why it is used, although there is much controversy about whether Daylight Savings really helps in these areas.
- people use less energy during the afternoon and evening hours when they are active and this more than offsets the increased energy used in the morning hours
- driving is safer for the evening commute times
- there is less crime during the popular evening mugging periods
- Trick or Treating is now safer since Daylight Savings (as of 2007) now is in affect on Halloween. This, believe it or not, is something that the candy industry has been lobbying for for years!
- There is a higher voter turnout when Daylight Savings is in affect
- Retailers and the manufacturers of sporting goods benefit
- People like it!
So there you go. There are the “official reasons”. I’m still not crazy about the idea, but to tell you the truth, my main problem is with the “spring forward” part of it. In the fall when I “fall back” and get an extra hour of sleep, I’m a big proponent of the concept!
