Clocks change this weekend, but will the law?

On Sunday morning, clocks will be set ahead one hour once again. Efforts are underway to make it permanent, but would that be more trouble than it's worth?

On Sunday, March 10, at 2 a.m., clocks in most parts of the United States will spring forward one hour as daylight saving time (DST) begins, running until Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. And even though this means for many people losing one hour of sleep this weekend, you’ll actually be gaining an extra hour of daylight in the evening.

To switch, or not to switch

Studies over the last 25 years have shown the one-hour change disrupts body rhythms tuned to Earth’s rotation, adding fuel to the debate over whether having Daylight Saving Time in any form is a good idea.

For every argument to switch or not to switch, there is a counterargument. There are studies, for example, that show we have more car accidents when people lose an extra hour of sleep. There are also studies that show robberies decline when there is an extra hour of sunlight at the end of the day. We also know that people suffer more heart attacks at the start of Daylight Saving Time. But what about our mental health? People seem to be happier when there is an extra hour of daylight.

AccuWeather Twitter and Facebook fans participated in a poll asking whether they would rather see it bright or dark at 6 a.m. Two-thirds of respondents said they'd rather have a bright morning than dark.

Lawmakers have pushed for permanent daylight saving time

The Sunshine Protection Act of 2023 was introduced into Congress for the fourth time on March 1, 2023 by U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, but has not moved forward for a vote. The version introduced in 2021 passed the Senate, but died in the House.

The bill would make daylight saving time the new, permanent time. Opponents say that making standard time permanent would be more beneficial. 

Two states -- Arizona, with the exception of the Navajo territory, and Hawaii -- do not observe daylight saving time. Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam and American Samoa don't follow it either. 

The history of daylight saving time

American Founding Father and scientist Benjamin Franklin was the first person to hint at the idea of daylight saving time, from an economic perspective, in 1784 when he lived in Paris. He thought Parisians could save money on candles if they woke up at sunrise and went to bed as the sun set. 

Over a century later, in 1895, New Zealand entomologist George Vernon Hudson proposed a two-hour shift forward in October and a two-hour shift backward in March to the Wellington Philosophical Society. But this only led to heavy criticism and mocking, with some detractors calling it confusing.

It wasn't until 1916, two years into World War I, that DST was first implemented by Germany.

The country decided to turn every clock in the country one hour ahead with the goal of minimizing the use of fuel for artificial lighting and saving it for war efforts. Soon after, other European countries such as Austria, France and the United Kingdom joined the practice.

Pittsburgh native Robert Garland first introduced the idea to the U.S. in 1918, after he visited the U.K., and a bill was signed and approved by President Woodrow Wilson on March 8 of that same year. 

But only seven months later, the war came to a close, and DST was repealed. It wasn't reintroduced until World War II. From the end of the war in 1945 until 1966, there was no uniformity in the use of DST in the country, which caused quite a bit of confusion. 

That dilemma came to an end in 1966, when the Uniform Time Act of 1966 was implemented by the U.S. Department of Transportation, dividing the country into different time zones and setting the official start and end dates of DST in the country as March through November. Then, provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 outlined that daylight saving time would start on the second Sunday in March and end on the first Sunday in November.

But after half a century, it remains to be seen whether the DST tradition of changing clocks every few months will live on or if the Sunshine Protection Act will prevail.

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