DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME

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I have to admit, I was not happy and still am not happy with Daylight Saving Time. And, just to clarify, it is “Daylight Saving Time” not “Daylight Savings Time.” I was just fine and dandy with never having to change my clocks or worry about what time it was here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Our country – that is the contiguous United States – is divided into four time zones: Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific. When we are not in Daylight Saving mode, we are considered to be on standard time. A week ago we switched back to Eastern Standard Time (EST). Next March, we move to Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) and observe Daylight Saving Time.

I grew up with Daylight Saving Time during the 1950s and the 1960s, and then adjusted to not having it in the 1970s, when our legislature dispensed with it. I spent 30+ years living with Eastern Standard Time and not changing my clocks, and I liked it.

Daylight Saving Time was instituted in the United States during World War I in order to save energy for war production by taking advantage of the later hours of daylight between April and October. During World War II the federal government again required the states to observe the time change. Between the wars and after World War II, states and communities chose whether or not to observe Daylight Saving Time. In 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act which standardized the length of Daylight Saving Time.

Indiana’s time history has a checkered past. From 1918, when the Act of March 19, 1918 passed, establishing legal time zones in the United States, until 1961, the dividing line between the Eastern Time Zone and the Central Time Zone was the eastern border of Indiana. We once belonged to the Central Time zone. Interesting!

The entire state was on Central Time, and observed Daylight Saving Time (DST). In 1961, the Interstate Commerce Commission adjusted this line so that Indiana was split down the middle, with the eastern half of the state on Eastern Time, and the western half on Central Time.

Having the state split in two time zones was inconvenient and so, in 1967 Governor Roger D. Branigan petitioned the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) to have the entire state of Indiana placed back on Central Time. Instead, DOT fixed the boundary in a position where all but ten counties in western Indiana (those ten counties were Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Newton, and Jasper in the northwest and Gibson, Posey, Vanderburgh, Warrick, and Spencer counties in the southwest) were in the Eastern Time Zone, but the state was given permission to exempt portions of itself from DST.

Although most portions of the state that were in the Eastern Time Zone did not observe DST, some counties – including Floyd, Clark, Harrison, counties near Louisville, Kentucky, and Ohio and Dearborn, counties near Cincinnati, Ohio – observed it unofficially due to their proximity to major cities in other Eastern Time Zone states. The Central time zone counties did observe DST.

Today only Arizona (except some Indian Reservations), Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa have chosen not to observe Daylight Saving Time. Until 2006, Indiana was also included in that group. One of Governor Daniels’ campaign promises was to bring Indiana into line with the other states which already recognized Daylight Saving Time.

One of the biggest arguments for Daylight Saving Time was the confusion caused by our Indiana zones and clock changes – or non-changes – on out-of-state companies transacting business in Indiana. I really have my doubts as to that argument. Many companies do business in every conceivable time zone, so it would seem that they would be astute at knowing what time it is at any given moment in various countries and states.

Despite public opposition, the Indiana legislature voted to move Indiana onto Daylight Saving Time in 2005. The change took effect in 2006. Indiana was not the only entity to tinker with its system of time change; Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, extending Daylight Saving Time by four weeks. Observation of DST now begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November.

Today, the arguments for or against Daylight Saving Time have nothing to do with war-time production. In fact, I don’t see how arguments can be made in favor of Daylight Saving Time, especially with our 24-hour-a-day society. Big-box stores never close. Fast-food chains are open close to 24-hours a day. Many factories work two or three shifts. Any energy conservation that occurred in our earlier history certainly has to be eaten up by our 24-hour lifestyle.

One final fact – although the world has a population of over 6.5 billion people, only 1 billion of those people are subject to Daylight Saving Time. Many of the foreign countries which are now the sources of cheap imports do not observe Daylight Saving Time. CAFTA countries, for the most part, do not observe DST. China does not observe DST.

Funny how that doesn’t stop our corporations from doing business with them. And, I doubt it will.

 

Although DST is common in Europe and North America, most of the world’s people do not use it.

DST never used (red)

DST used (blue)

DST no longer used (orange)

29 thoughts on “DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME”

  1. Pingback: Masson’s Blog - A Citizen’s Guide to Indiana » A brief history of DST

  2. Regarding how many of the world’s people observe Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Saving Time only makes sense if you are far away from the equator. At the equator, the sun rises and sets at the same time every day of the year. It is only in the far north and far south that sunrise and sundown move around so dramatically. If you draw the equator on your map, you will see that the countries farthest away from the equator observe Daylight Saving Time, and the countries closest to the equator do not, for the most part. And most of the world’s people are closer to the equator than we are.

    Regarding the time zone boundary, if the thing were drawn where it should be geographically, it would slice Ohio into two zones, and all of Indiana and Michigan and most of Kentucky would all be in Central Time. I cannot figure out why these states want to be on Eastern time. It is being in the wrong time zone that has made the transition to the observation of DST such a wrench to the Hoosiers.

  3. I know a lot of sources state that 82 counties were put into the Eastern Time Zone at the time of the 1968 DOT decision, including the Wikipedia. The problem is that the statement is incorrect. Pike and Starke Counties were left in the Central Time Zones at the time so the split was 80/12, not 82/10. Those two counties later petitioned the DOT to move to Eastern. It took Starke County two tries (the first time in the ’80’s was a joint petition with Jasper County to its west, which was denied). Starke was eventually moved to Eastern in 1991 (and back to Central in 2005). Before the DOT moved most of Indiana to Eastern time there had been a wide spread tendency in the State to observe year round Daylight Saving (i.e. CDT). Since doing so would have illegal under the then new UTA (which fixed the period of DST as running from the last Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October and allowed only the exemption from DST, not from Standard time), moving the State to Eastern time was a back door way of allowing the whole state to continue what was a widespread practice. In effect the only change was we couldn’t call it Central Daylight anymore, but had to call it Eastern Standard. Both though are GMT-5. Indiana wasn’t hostile to DST, it loved it so much it made it year round.

    The Indiana legislature didn’t wait for Congress to amend the Uniform Time Act to allow a state to exempt only the portion of a state in one time zone from DST but exempted the entire state (ETZ and CTZ portions) from daylight saving in 1971 (overriding Governor Whitcomb’s veto in the process). The law was written to kick over to a one zone only exemption once Congress amended the UTA to provide the Indiana provision. The change in the Uniform Time Act was worked out in a letter of understanding between DOT Secretary John E. Robson and Sen. Birch Bayh in 1968, but it took five years until the change finally worked its way through Congress. During the two years that the Central Time sections of the State were “exempted” from DST they ignored the law and simply went on observing seasonal DST. The DOT didn’t press the issue and continued to lobby Congress to change the UTA to make the practice legal.

    In conversations I’ve had with people there seems to be a wide spread misconception that the “exemption” is no longer available. It is. Any state legislature can still exempt part of a state so long as its exempts all of the territory in one time zone. I understand that such a bill was presented in the Florida legislature a few years ago for its Eastern Time Zone portion and that exercise of such an exemption is being pushed in Alaska.

    As for why we are in Eastern, the most consistent and effective lobby for Eastern Time has been local Television interests. Network television schedules for the Eastern and Central time zones are fully synchronized (we’ve all seen the ads for programs starting at 8 Eastern, 7 Central). Eastern Time stations can fill the 7 to 8 p.m. slots with syndicated/rerun (e.g. Wheel of Fortune, the Simpsons) programming and pocket almost all of the ad money for the period. In some quarters this is even referred to as “Simpons’ money”.

  7. Being as old as dirt I to have lived through Indaian time changes. Was not thrilled about the idea when it proposed this trip. So I started researching the Internet for informatin to use against it.

    Well, I leared, depending on who you want believe, that there is a 1%-5% savings. Most often the number was closer to 2%-3%. That comes from all types of energy products.

    Here is some other things I read about that seemed interesting.

    1- In the US the “family” owned farm has the main farm operator working full time at some other type of employment. The added hour allows him to carry out more farming tasks with the extra hour. Accidents on the farm are reduced also.

    2- People tend to be out doors more. This comes from gardening, enjoying community events, and so forth.

    3- Some types of minor crimes are reduced such as thief from cars, stealing items from property, and such.

    4- The additional hour of light at night allow people to get tasks done through the week that they would have waited for the weekend to accomplish. Hence, if affords them more free time on the weekends for other things.

  8. DST simply takes an hour of daylight from the morning and gives it to the afternoon. Transferring 43 Indiana counties from the central zone to the eastern zone in 1961 also took an hour of morning sun and gave it to the evening. So what we have is double daylight saving time. This is why Indianapolis has the latest sunrises of any major city in the country. Terre Haute, and now Vincennes, along with Boise have the latest of any cities in the lower 48. Indiana is the only state in which a time zone boundary has been moved across its border (with a minor exception of a sparsely populated section of western Oregon).
    DST advocates have always asserted that it saves energy. But this has never been proven in practice.
    An interesting thought. There are 2.4 million households in Indiana and if each spent 1/2 hour in the spring and again in the fall changing their clocks this would make make 2.4 million hours. Or twice as many, 1.2 million hours, it took to clear the Twin Towers debris field. One would think our bean counting governor would have considered this.

  10. I like az time because I say we are on God’s time and never change. AWESOME!! I hope it always stays that way.

  11. I appreciate the fact that we can use more sunlight, but not having a sunset until 10:00 p.m. in the summer is ridiculous. It may benefit golfers and some who desire to stay out doors until the last minute, but other than that, I don’t believe the old arguments of saving energy or making us more “business friendly” hold water.

    I have found that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. Lengthening the day at one end only darkens it at the other. How does that save energy? Unless you get up in the middle of the morning, you will need to turn on lights and use energy in the dark morning hours.

    I also still believe that our penchant for a 24-hour society where stores don’t close and you can shop at any hour and factories run 24 hours a day has taken away any energy savings that might have occurred in the past.

    If you remember, the governor sold the idea that if we moved into the “present” with DST that companies would better be able to do business with us. I wonder if anyone has done any studies yet on that aspect?

  12. Charlotte,

    The problem is we are past the western edge of the so-called EST time zone. Keep in mind in the middle of EST the sun is up over 1/2 hour before it is here. Like wise it is going down over 1/2 earlier. If we where in the correct time zone of CDT it would be only 9:00 at night, instead of the 10:00 under EDT.

  13. I checked on the sunrise and sunset times this past summer, and we are actually about 45 minutes later than the East coast as far as sunrise and sunset.

    We should be in the Central time zone, but I doubt that will happen unless there is a huge public push for it.

  14. I love DST. Great up with it and only when I moved to Indiana did I not have to set my clock two times each year. There are only two times per year that you have to set your clock. This is hardly life altering. It’s not that big of a deal and the benefit is, we get more daylight in the evenings during the summer. It’s great. My husband gets that much more time to spend outdoors with the kids every evening.

    I’m not surprised by the countries in RED. Many of those countries are underdeveloped countries. Why should we care what other countries do anyway??

  15. Charlotte…

    That would be correct. From the East Coast it would be close to 45 mintues. I picked the rough middle for fun.

    What is strange, because of the tilt of the earth that in the summer the northern part of the low pen. of Mich. has the sun coming up before we do and going down after it does here.

    I used Glennie, Mich because of having friends that live up there.

    You are right. I would support CST and I don’t see it playing well here.

    Get me a horse to ride…..

  16. The arguments that DST saves energy are fraught with problems.
    Most of the studies I have seen on DST and energy usage look only at electricity usage, not all energy consumption. If people are outside “enjoying” the “later” sunsets doesn’t it follow that they are using motor vehicles, pleasure boats, all-terrain vehicles and other gasoline driven contrivances more? A west coast Canadian energy consultant who looked at this side of the issue concluded that DST increased total energy consumption.

    Even if we look just at electricity consumption the answer to the question is far from clear. The study typically referred to support the claim for energy/electricity usage was done in the early 1970’s and looked at only the winter months, during a period when Richard Nixon ordered year round DST as an energy conservation measure during the Arab oil embargo stemming from the Yom Kippur War. There is every reason to believe that people were acting to the spike in oil prices by cutting back on expenditures. The economy itself was not exactly “purring”. Life styles have changed since then. This 35 year old study is essentially worthless as a document to base public policy on.

    Finally, none of the electricity consumption studies expliciltly take into account the relative placement of locations within a time zone on the consumption of electricity. Even were it true that DST saves electricity in Boston, Mass. does it follow that Eastern Daylight saves electricity in Indiana? The only study that is even in the slightest suggestive on this point was done in California earlier this decade. There they found some benefit to winter DST (i.e. year round Pacific Daylight), but very little in summer double DST. The San Diego/Los Angeles area is about as far west of the Mountain time meridian as western Indiana is from the Eastern Time meridian. But California of course observes Pacific Time, which would be like us observing Central Time. This means that virtually all of their hypothetical electricity savings would be achieved here by observing year round EST(CDT), which is what we were doing before Daniels came along.

    The Indiana Chamber of Commerce loves the California Study, and very good at misrepresenting its findings. They don’t talk so much about the “energy savings” it found but the money people would save. The California study took place during the California electricity supply crisis of a few years ago after their power market was deregulated. During this period they were experiencing essentially extortion pricing during periods of the day when power demand peaked. California found monatary savings could be obtained by shifting and leveling peak power demand.

    But there is very little reason to believe that peak power demand periods in Indiana would track California, or that moving them would help. California can be isolated from and its power demands dwarf those of its neighbors. Around the Great Lakes we would have to look at how best to balance peak demand across and power flow into Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. Claiming Indiana would gain the same financial benefits that were hypothetically available to California during an electricity supply “crisis” is absurd.

  17. Paul:

    Great information! I think we have been spoon-fed the notion that DST is somehow this great solution to a number of problems. And, the point you make about viewing only electricity is correct. I don’t think most people think about the other forms of energy that are consumed by increased daylight.

    I will reiterate that DST is not the energy saving phenomenon we are told it is – especially in the summer when the sun sets so late. Stores are open on a 24-hour basis all over the country, so we have increased our use, not decreased it.

  18. Carol:

    You said:

    “I’m not surprised by the countries in RED. Many of those countries are underdeveloped
    countries. Why should we care what other countries do anyway??”

    I truly hope you were joking. Please tell the countries in the Saudi Arabian peninsula that they are underdeveloped, and I imagine they will laugh until they drop over. The United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) contains the country of Dubai. Halliburton just relocated its main corporate offices to Dubai, and, if you research Dubai, you will find that it is one of the wealthiest nations in the world – a far cry from being underdeveloped. If you look at the map, China falls into the category of “no longer uses”, so apparently at one point, they used DST and decided to go back to non-use. And, what country has become one of the biggest exporters to the U.S.? China of course. China is seen as one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

    If we shouldn’t care about what other countries do, then why are we bogged down in chaos in Iraq?

    You make a very ethnocentric assumption about the countries that have never used DST or are no longer using DST. I do have to say that if you were not joking, your statement is the perfect example of why so many countries dislike us and our ethnocentric attitudes.

  19. I submitted this article to the Docket in 2005 supporting central time. The Chamber of Commerce is responsible for EDT in Indiana. It was also instrumental in having the state divided in 1961. Their main argument for the change to EDT was to eliminate confusion. This was very disingenuous of them because the root cause of any confusion about Indiana time is the 1961 split. The list of reasons they gave for EDT is the one given by DST advocates anywhere in the world. They didn’t take into account Indiana’s already advanced clock. Their EDT arguments for Indiana are nothing more than snake oil peddled by some modern day medicine men.

    This is a reply to the assertions made by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce in Docket OST-2005-22114-160 and to their August 16, 2005 letter to the editor of the Indianapolis Star.

    Their first assertion was that Eastern Daylight Time would provide more sunlight for Indiana. This would certainly be historical if it was true. But fortunately man has no control over the length of time the sun shines. Otherwise the polar ice caps would have disappeared a long time ago.

    The second assertion was it would be good for the economy because we trade more with the states to the east. They didn’t provide the source of the trade statistics they quoted to support this argument. But the fact remains there are many more Americans to our west than to the east and the gap widens with each passing decade. Logic would say that the businesses on Central Time would be closer to the center of the national marketplace. The old economy was tilted to the east. The new global economy has a western look toward Silicon Valley and the Pacific Rim. Gov. Daniels’ recent trade mission traveled west to Taiwan and Japan. Time differentials between zones are less with Central than with Eastern. With Central the widest difference is two hours, while Eastern is three hours ahead of the Pacific Zone. The more we align our state with the East the wider we separate ourselves from the remaining 75% of the nation.

    The third assertion was a later sunset would reduce crime by 10% according to the Department of Transportation. This statistic defies all logic. It suggests that the crime rate would be higher in the winter than in the summer and the crime rate in Indiana is greater than in the states that observe EDT. Everyone knows the truth is just the opposite.

    Another assertion is we would save energy based on a study by the California Energy Commission (this study is available on line by searching for the Commission). It was a statistical study based on the previous 2 year electrical usage projected into the future. It made many assumptions and disclaimers and involved complex math (24 linear equations). One of the disclaimers was the study should not be used to set public policy. At most the study showed maybe a ½% electrical energy savings. Using this figure my savings for last year’s electricity would have been $4.50 at the best.

    The 1973 federal law that required the nation to observe Daylight Time the year round was repealed a year later because of an increase in traffic fatalities. EDT brings with it 8+ AM sunrises in October, November, December, January, and March. The majority of the morning commuters are at work by 8 AM. This means that most make the trip in the dark which hides many of the winter’s hazards such as icy overpasses and spotty slick places. The winter darkness also makes walking on driveways, sidewalks, parking lots, and steps much more treacherous. Switching to Central Time to gain an extra hour of daylight in the morning would not shift the problems to the evening rush. On most days the conditions are much improved in the afternoon. The daytime temperatures average 20 degrees warmer than at night and road crews have had more time to clear the thoroughfares while daytime traffic has beaten paths on the less traveled streets.

    Every square foot of Indiana is located in the Central Standard Time Zone. Indiana is the only state in the nation that was entirely in one zone and divided county by county into two zones by the federal government. Indiana counties should not have to beg the Department of Transportation for Central Time; it should be granted as part of their birthright.

  20. I wonder what long term changes in “life styles” DST has promoted that fan energy use as well. I can almost hear the ad copy pandering to us about “Now more Daylight for your Active Life Style” followed by a cut to a racy red convertable or all terrain vehicle. The Chamber of Commerce may want us to believe that evening darkness may be the end of life as we know it, but it wasn’t the end of life as previous generations knew it. I can recall summer evenings including dances under the stars, outdoor movies at the Franke Park bandshell, and evening concerts where sound traveled so well after the sun set and the atmosphere settled. I’d guess these activities, while they used energy, were less energy intensive than what occurs now. And these activities were more communal than the radical individualism that is being sold.

  24. Jim wrote: “Indiana counties should not have to beg the Department of Transportation for Central Time; it should be granted as part of their birthright.”

    I’m from Michigan but I like the way Indiana people resist being herded. In September 2006 I was on a bicycle tour that took me through Pulaski County. My wife (not on a bicycle) told me about the morning she spent in Winamac. The city fathers had not agreed on anything re the new changes to DST. So some businesses used one clock, some another, and others had both. Drive up and down the main street (US-35), and you’d see one outdoor clock with one time, and another with another. Confusing? Yes. But life would be boring without confusion. And it’s healthy for democracy when people are accustomed to taking matters into their own hands to the maximum extent possible, short of anarchy. They’ll eventually work things like this out in a reasonable fashion.

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  26. I am thankful for the background information about DST. I am currently a student working on a semester theme about Indiana history. I am including in my first lesson about the time zones. I want to explain to the students what time zone we are in and why. This blog and its responsive blogs has helped a lot with my research. I never understood why we (Indiana) had to be on two different time zones. Once we decided to change, I thought it would have been better for the whole state to stay on Central time. It would have made more sense that we didn’t have to change our clocks. And, you are right. We deal with all different time zones. We have family living in other time zones, and we know folks that travel out of the country. And we especially know that businesses deal with companies out of our time zone and out of our country. We also don’t always understand why legislatures make the decisions they do.

  27. Unfulfilled Promises

    Three weeks from now on March 9, 2008 we will advance our clocks one hour and for the third year in a row morning commuters will have to do so in the dark – just when they were getting a hint of daylight at the end of the road. Indianapolis has the latest sunrises of any major city in the country because Eastern Daylight Time amounts to double daylight time for our geographic location (86 degrees W. Longitude). It could be worse. Hoosiers living in Terre Haute and now Vincennes have the latest summer sunrises of any location in America. It hasn’t always been so. On March 9, 2005, Indianapolis’s sunrise was at 7:05 EST but this year it will occur at 8:05 EDT. By comparison, the sun will rise in New York City at 7:17 EDT, in Chicago at 7:12 CDT, and Los Angeles at 7:11 PDT. It is readily apparent our clocks were better aligned with the rest of the nation’s clocks before we started to observe Eastern Daylight Time. These abnormally late sunrises haven’t made our winters longer. It just seems so.

    Hoosiers will spend 2,400,000 hours this year resetting clocks. Is it really worth this effort to be on the same time as Bangor, Maine? Has double daylight time lived up to what was promised? We were told it would end the confusion about Indiana time but now most people are confused about whether to advance their clocks or to set them back an hour. Pity those that fail to do either. We were told it would save energy but if it has it would be the first time double daylight savings has ever done so. We were told it would lower the crime rate but now Marion County has a crime wave of historical proportions. We were told it would be good for business but now we are an extra hour removed from the center of the nation’s market place. We were told it would be good for the economy but now lawmakers are trying to figure out how to raise taxes because of dwindling revenue. We were told it would place more Hoosiers on the same time but before 2006 Ft. Wayne, Indianapolis, Evansville, Gary and Chicago clocks were set to the same time most of the year and now there is always an hour difference between the Hoosiers in the eastern zone and the Hoosiers in the central zone. We were told it would make evening driving safer but we weren’t told that driving in the darker mornings would be more hazardous. We were told that there would be more daylight for evening walks but we weren’t told that there would be less daylight for morning jogs.

    We, the people of Indiana, have not been treated fairly. An unnatural clock has been imposed on us without our consent. No candidate for a state office campaigned to have Indiana divided by a time zone boundary but the federal government, acting on the request of a private lobbying organization, did so in 1961. No candidate for state office campaigned for Eastern Daylight Time specifically. Candidate Daniels campaigned for generic daylight savings but many of us believed he preferred Central Daylight Time. Lawmakers had to vote not knowing if they were voting for Eastern or Central daylight. The measure failed to pass twice but was resurrected again and passed on the third vote when a representative reneged on a promise he had made to his constituents. A matter such as this that affects each of us in very personal ways should be decided not by the whims of special interests but by the people at the ballot box after a vigorous and open public debate.

  28. The Wall Street Journal edition for 27 February 2008, page D1, highlights an electric power usage study focused on Indiana since the adoption of DST. The conclusion was that electric power usage in the parts of Indiana that began using DST increased by 1 to 4% at a cost to Hoosier consumers of over $8 million. They attributed the increased power usage to increased use of lights in morning hours in fall and spring and increased usage of air conditioning in the summer due to people returning home during the hottest part of the day.

  29. Paul:

    Thanks for the update. I still think changing to DST was a mistake. But it sure made Daniels look like he was accomplishing something.

    I wonder if those new stats could be used to go back to standard time?

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