Spring Forward, Fall Back

On this Sunday, November 1 at 2 a.m. local time, daylight saving time ends in most of the United States. While more U.S. residents will turn back their clocks before going to sleep on Saturday, people in Hawaii, Arizona, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Virgin Islands will remain on their standard time.

Despite this biannual tradition, no federal law requires that states observe daylight saving time. A federal law originally passed in 1918 and revised in 2005 mandates that areas which observe daylight saving time must switch to standard time at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in November and that these same regions must “spring forward” and lose one hour at the same time on the second Sunday in March.

The origination of daylight savings time is strange, as Congress transferred oversight from the Interstate Commerce Commission to the Department of Transportation in 1966. While the Department of Transportation may seem unfit to deal with time laws, the delegation of daylight saving time dates back to railroads.

Before the regulation, each locality set their own time, which proved difficult when setting railroad schedules. In 1883, the railroad industry established official, national time zones, which Congress eventually adopted into law in 1918.
Part of this law included an observance of daylight saving time, but that section was repealed the next year and ever since, daylight saving time has been up to the discretion of local jurisdictions. The time was finally standardized with the Uniform Time Act in 1966, which allowed states to remain on standard time. Few changes have been made, and the recently set dates for changing clocks remain.

Daylight saving time aims “to adjust daylight hours to when most people are awake and about,” says Bill Mosley, an officer at the U.S. Department of Transportation. The time change decreases daylight in the early morning, therefore making it available during the evening.

Daylight savings may bring many benefits. Some experts claim that it saves energy (though others say it cancels out any savings because people use more electricity in the morning). Research has proven than daylight saving time has reduced traffic accidents as well as crime. And, lastly, more daylight provides more opportunities for children to play outside and use parks.
I much prefer daylight saving time to standard time—I like sunny, warm weather—but at least when switching back to standard time we gain hour.