Every time the clocks change, you hear people calling out to “abolish daylight-savings time.” What that actually usually means is that they want to be permanently on daylight-saving time and never go back to standard time.
If you see a post on social media, usually one or more comments will ask, “Didn’t the Legislature already do that?” And the answer is no. What the Florida Legislature did was pass a bill that said that if the federal government ever allowed us to abandon standard time, we immediately will, without any further action or consideration by the Legislature or governor.
Legislators love this kind of legislation, which is often referred to as “performative.” It elicits much acclaim and even cheering without actually doing anything. Florida, like all other states, is allowed to abandon daylight-saving time whenever we would like, according to the Uniform Time Act of 1966. (And yes, it is daylight-saving time and not savings time.) Two states, Arizona and Hawaii, and the Navajo Nation, already opt out. They stay perpetually on standard time or “God’s time.” So does Puerto Rico.
Some say that President Trump will do away with the requirement to revert to standard time and “lock the clock.” He might! The problem with going on to permanent daylight-saving time is winter mornings. It just stays dark longer in the morning, a full hour longer! And that hour of darkness can wreak havoc. We tried this once before during the Arab oil embargo. That was around the same time we reduced the speed limit to 55.
In early 1974, we went into a two-year trial period of year-round daylight-saving time. School children walking to school in the dark got hit by cars. In Florida, eight children were killed. Reuben Askew was governor at that time. He immediately petitioned the Congress to repeal the law. Support for the time change dropped drastically. A majority of Americans hated the morning darkness, and the death of children was a universal concern. In April, the law was repealed.
The idea of daylight-saving time is often ascribed to Benjamin Franklin. Franklin wrote an essay in 1784 titled “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light.” The essay was a letter to the editor of a Parisian newspaper, and it was meant as a joke. In the essay, he suggests that by getting out of bed earlier, Parisians might save the equivalent of $200 million in today’s money.
Given the current administration, the war in the Middle East and the accompanying rising gas prices, don’t be shocked if we pass a law allowing us all to go onto permanent daylight-saving time. Just don’t blame me when you hate it!
