America’s current daylight saving time system — spring-to-fall DST followed by winter standard time — is an excellent compromise, providing all of DST’s many benefits for the majority of the year and yet avoiding winter DST’s difficulties during the dark, cold months.

Evaluating DST is more complex than it might initially seem. Many focus on issues related to the clock changes and do not examine the significant benefits they provide throughout the months after each change. Modifications to our current system would cause fewer benefits to spring and fall, more problems in winter, or both.

One proposed alternative is Year-Round Standard Time. This would cut short 240 beautiful, long spring, summer and autumn evenings and would eliminate eight months of DST’s benefits. Numerous studies show that having spring-to-fall DST increases public health and the quality of life by getting people outdoors more, reduces crimes like mugging, reduces energy usage and peaks, and over the 240- day period, reduces traffic accidents and fatalities significantly.

Year-Round Standard Time would make many spring and summer sunrises extremely early, while most people are sleeping: New York and Chicago sunrises before 4:30 a.m., Los Angeles and Washington sunrises before 5 a.m. We would sleep through morning sunshine for many months, while that daylight could have been better utilized later in the day. Our current DST system relocates an hour of otherwise wasted early morning sunshine to a much more useful hour at day’s end.

Under federal law, each state can choose Year-Round Standard Time without federal approval. Only two states do so, and for unique reasons: Hawaii, the closest state to the equator, has daylight hours that vary little over the year, making DST’s benefits much smaller. Arizona’s most populous areas have extreme summer heat, and so instead of additional summer daylight, Arizonans await sunset to go outdoors.

Another major alternative to the current DST system is Year-Round Daylight Time. This isn’t a new idea; Americans have tried this option and firmly rejected it.

During a 1974 national energy crisis, the federal government installed nationwide Year-Round DST for two years. But winter DST quickly lost support. People didn’t like traveling to work in the dark on winter mornings. They especially disliked sending their children to school on dark mornings, waiting for buses on dark rural roads, or walking dark city streets. Congress followed national sentiment and eliminated Year-Round DST after one year, although the law would have automatically expired the following year.

Already-late winter sunrises are one hour later under Year-Round Daylight Time — the sun would rise in New York and Denver about 8:30 a.m., in Indianapolis and Seattle about 9 a.m., and in some U.S. areas at 9:30 a.m. or later. Large numbers of people would travel to work or school in total darkness. Mornings would also be colder; in more frigid areas, many would leave home before sunrise, when it is coldest.

Proposed DST changes would eliminate DST’s clock changes. While many people quickly adjust to the changes, others find them troublesome. Clock change effects generally last just one or a few days, while summer DST’s benefits last 240 days and winter standard time’s benefits last 120 days.

Moving the clock forward one hour is like traveling one time zone to the east (Chicago to New York, London to Paris, Beijing to Tokyo), which multitudes do worldwide daily. And numerous travelers cross multiple time zones.

Regarding claimed health effects, a 2024 Mayo Clinic study of 36 million adults over five years found no significant link between DST and heart attack or stroke. Assessing DST, “there is no need to take concerns regarding heart health into account.”

Rather than changing our time system, other alternatives exist to minimize the negative effects of clock changes. One option: Several days before each DST clock change, a campaign of public service announcements could remind people that a clock change is coming and advise getting more sleep and going to sleep somewhat earlier in the days leading up to the clock change, just as travelers do when confronting a time zone change.

The current very sensible and beneficial DST system brings great advantages throughout the year, eliminates the problems caused by other systems, and results in the best time system for both spring-to-fall and winter.

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ABOUT THE WRITER

David Prerau is an internationally known expert on daylight saving time and has been called “The Foremost Authority on DST.” He is the author of “Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time.” He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

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