Permanent Daylight Saving Time – We Already Tried It and It Sucked

(KMDL-FM) The adage, "Be careful what you ask for; you just might get it," has been playing nonstop in my head since I first heard the news that the United States House of Representatives had passed legislation that would allow for permanent Daylight Saving Time. We have had permanent Daylight Saving Time (on a trial basis), and we hated it.

The year was 1973, so about 53 years ago, and America was involved in "The Energy Crisis". Back then, politicians were determined to wean the nation off of dependence on foreign oil. Yeah, that didn't happen, and neither did the acceptance of permanent Daylight Saving Time when it was implemented in January 1974.

Why DId Permanent Daylight Saving Time Fail in the 1970s?

The plan was to try "leaving the clocks alone for the sake of energy consumption". It lasted until October, when people were clamoring for the time change to be reinstated. The reason people hated it? We hate change, and going to permanent Daylight Saving Time would mean some huge changes.

man standing in front of lighted car

More and more people would be driving to work, and kids would be going to school in the dark. Unless we adjust the current four time zones in our nation, we could have major discrepancies in what "time" and "time of day" look like.

The U.S. Would Need More Time Zones For Permanent Daylight Saving Time to Work

For example, the Central Time Zone that Louisiana is in. That time zone begins, for our purposes, at the Alabama/Georgia border. You are still in the Central Time Zone when you're just outside of El Paso, Texas. The time zone stretches between 750 and 900 miles from east to west.

pocket watch at 3:55

Dothan, Alabama, is right on the eastern edge of the Central Time Zone. Odessa, Texas, is not quite at the western edge but very close. The sun will rise in Dothan this morning at 5:48.  The sun will rise in Odessa at 6:56. Those two towns are in the same time zone, and the difference in sunrise is over an hour. This is the way things are right now.

READ MORE: How Permanent Daylight Saving Time Will Affect Your Life

But if we moved to permanent Daylight Saving Time and moved to the shortest day of the year, December 22, sunrise in Dothan will happen at 7:55; that's almost 8 am. Meanwhile, in Odessa, Texas, on December 22, the sun will rise at 8:25. The trade-off in both cases would be more daylight after normal working hours.

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Personally, I think the same thing will happen again. I think we will implement what we'll call permanent Daylight Saving Time; then we'll hate it when it starts to interfere with what we are used to.