You know the campaigns are locked in on their messaging when extraordinary events collide — the final weekend of election season and the annual end of daylight saving time — and there’s scarcely a peep about DST from the candidates.
We the People are making noise, of course. Maybe not as much as in the spring when the Uniform Time Act carves an hour from the clock and we stumble grumpily through the next 72 hours or so. But we are Americans, dwelling in the land of privilege, and the comparative ease of our existence routinely prompts us to whine about minor inconveniences, such as the biannual manipulation of our timepieces.
The feds give, and the feds taketh away.
But if you’re looking for an ally in the battle to make daylight saving time permanent, or to do away with it altogether, you have come to the wrong place.
Stipulated: The arguments for locking the clock in one phase or the other are not without merit. Particularly fascinating: The number of vehicle-deer collisions soar 16% the week following the reset to standard time, according to a study published Wednesday by Current Biology.
Eliminating the autumnal fallback, the study says, would save the lives of nearly 37,000 deer and 33 human travelers, as well as $1.19 billion in collision repair costs.
Again, this is interesting, but not compelling. We await the authoritative study of deaths and injuries forecast by four months of dispatching youngsters to school in predawn darkness.
Besides, we’ve tried all-DST-all-the-time, and we despised it. America adopted permanent DST in far-less-whiny 1973, and dropped it after a single winter.
That did not stop the Senate, known neither for historical or scientific expertise, from passing the Sunshine Protection Act of 2021. A chief sponsor, alas, is Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who ought to know better.
Are you sitting down? We have Speaker Nancy Pelosi, otherwise up to her permanently-surprised eyebrows in legislative mischief, to thank for a welcome intervention. She bottled up the nonsense sent over from the world’s oldest deliberative body, and has no plans to uncork it during Congress’ lame duck session. (Cue the stopped-clock references.)
Because our regard for DST, including our degree of tolerance for its disruptions, are, at bottom, personal, we cite supporting data accordingly. All sides can identify studies to support their point to view.
Since we are mere hours from falling back an hour, I’ll begin there. Much moaning, especially from our friends Up North, accompanies the return to standard time. They leave for work in the dark. They commute home in the dark. This, if you can believe them, results in uncharacteristic moodiness.
For them, we commend Steven Petrow’s assessment, published in today’s USA Today: The Finns know how to deal.
Sinikka Isokaanta, a psychotherapist told me after we got home, “Nordic people don’t see the dark winter as a crisis but more as a challenge that can be managed in different ways.”
She explained to me that the Finns talk about “kotoilu,” which roughly translates into “the coziness of home.” (It’s very similar to what the Danes call “hygge.”) “It’s a time to enjoy being home with dim lights on, feeling like winter sleeping bears,” she continued in English with a soft Finnish accent.
Isokaanta also told me that these long, dark days “bring a sense of grounding, contentment, happiness and togetherness.”
Evidently — and here, perhaps, is a lesson for us all — many Finns also spend a considerable amount of their weeks-long darkness heating up dance floors to a salsa beat. In the spring and summer, they emerge, like butterflies, in spectacular costumes, for fabulous salsa festivals.
Winter sleeping bears, indeed.
So, as long as we know it’s personal, a matter of taste, this is me: Daylight saving time is good, and useful in its current deployment. I could cite studies about what eight months of extra evening daylight does for commerce, employment, fitness, and so on. But, no. Instead, let honesty prevail: In Florida, extra daylight encourages extra golf.
Now that DST is about to end, I’m good with that, too.
Katherine Wu expresses an enthusiastic embrace of fallback weekend, which includes “a government-sanctioned 25-hour Sunday. Forget birthdays, forget my anniversary; heck, forget the magic of Christmas.” It may be her favorite day of the year.
Falling back, to me, is its own joy: It recoups a springtime loss, and resets the clocks to the time that’s always suited me best. It’s wicked hard to fall asleep when the light lingers past 8 or 9 p.m. I also struggle to get out of bed without a hefty dose of morning light, which has been scarce in the past few weeks. Going out for my prework run has meant a lot of stumbling around and using my phone as a crummy flashlight. If and, God willing, when we ditch the status quo, I maintain that permanent standard time >>>> permanent daylight saving time.
Early darkness, in its season, is fine by me. Already, Christmas lights are being deployed around my north Tampa neighborhood. In a few weeks — please, not until after Thanksgiving — a switch will be thrown and abrupt sunsets will be enhanced by the dazzle of the holiday season.
Commuting, biking, or strolling while playing Spot-the-Griswolds is an unsurpassed delight that would be tempered by year-round DST.
Besides, now is not even remotely the worst part of DST. Instead, that prize belongs to spring-forward Sunday, event that triggers the risky fogginess that accompanies adjusting to that lost hour. There’s a simple, obvious solution for policymakers keen to keep what is best about that extra daylight — commerce, employment, recreation, tax revenue — without ditching the whole system.
Are you listening, Sen. Rubio?
Declare the first weekday of DST Spring-Forward Monday, a national holiday that allows working folks two days to adjust. Here’s a bet: The negatives surrounding that lost hour would diminish appreciably, but the benefits would remain.
You’re welcome. Now, enjoy that extra hour come Sunday. You’ve earned it.
