>Daylight Saving Time |
Daylight Saving Time in Hicksville, Ohio |
This year (2007), Daylight Saving Time begins March 11 and ends November 4. On Sunday, March 11, 2007 we set our clocks one hour ahead (add 1 to the hour), and on Sunday November 4, we set our clocks back one hour (subtract 1 hour).
This year the date for the start of Daylight Saving Time has been moved up by 3 weeks and the end date delayed by one week. This means that many electronic devices will fail to make the change on the proper date, but instead will wait until April 1. This will affect many electronic devices such as computers, VCRS, DVD players, cell phones, PDA's, TIVO's, and digital cameras.
If you use a computer calendar program for scheduling, you could find yourself being late for meetings. The newly released Microsft Vista operating system for PC's has the new date programmed in. Software patches are available from Microsoft for older versions of Windows.
Hicksville is in the Eastern Time Zone, as is all of Ohio and Michigan. All counties in Ohio and Michigan observe Daylight Saving Time. In the United States, each county may decide if it will observe Daylight Saving Time. However, all counties that choose to observe it must begin and end Daylight Saving Time on the dates set by the federal government. The federal government also sets the time at which each time zone is to change (2 am).
Indiana is split between two time zones, with most of the state in the Eastern Time Zone, and a small portion of the state around Chicago is, like Chicago, in the Central Time Zone.
Of Indiana's 92 counties, five in the northwest corner near Chicago and five in the southwest corner in the Evansville area are in the Central time zone.
The remaining 82 counties are in the Eastern time zone. Previously, only five counties in southeastern Indiana - three near Louisville, Ky., and two near Cincinnati - observed daylight time to stay in sync with their big-city neighbors. The rest of the 77 counties (including Fort Wayne's Allen county) stayed on Eastern Standard Time all year.
The Indiana state legislature, however, has decided that all Indiana counties will now observe Daylight Saving Time.
The main purpose of Daylight Saving Time (called "Summer Time" in many parts of the world) is to make better use of daylight by moving an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening during the Summer months.
Near the equator, day and night are nearly the same length. Therefore, Daylight Saving Time is not useful in the tropics, and most countries near the equator do not change their clocks. But elsewhere on Earth, there are more hours of daylight in the Summer than in the winter. As you get closer to the North or South pole, the day becomes longer in the Summer and shorter in the winter. That's why all 11 of the Russian time zones are an hour ahead of standard time during the winter and 2 hours ahead during Daylight Saving Time.
According to a poll by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Americans like Daylight Saving Time because they can do more in the evenings.
In the Spring and Fall, the 70% of Americans who rise before 7 am will use as much additional electricity for lighting in the morning as they save in the evening. Late risers will use less. During the Summer, almost everyone will use less.
Studies done by the U.S. Department of Transportation show that nationwide electricity usage is reduced by a small amount (less than one percent) during Daylight Saving Time. However, one would expect these savings to be more in the northern states and less in the southern states.
Some people complain about the inconvenience of changing all of their clocks, and adjusting to a new sleep schedule. People with sleep disorders find this transition very difficult.
Farm animals take several weeks to adapt, and this can be a difficult time for farmers.
Some people claim that we are endangering our school children when we switch to Daylight Saving Time, because initially they will be walking to school in the dark.
Several studies in the U.S. and Britain have found that Daylight Saving Time decreases by four times the likelihood of pedestrians being killed on the roads, most likely because there are more pedestrians in the evening than early in the morning.
Benjamin Franklin first proposed the idea of Daylight Saving Time while serving as an American delegate in Paris in 1784, in an essay titled "An Economical Project."
In 1907 London builder William Willett observed in his pamphlet "The Waste of Daylight:"
"Everyone appreciates the long, light evenings. Everyone laments their shortage as Autumn approaches; and everyone has given utterance to regret that the clear, bright light of an early morning during Spring and Summer months is so seldom seen or used".
Willett spent a fortune lobbying for Daylight Saving Time until he died in1915. Germany was the first to enact compulsory Daylight Saving Time in 1916, and Britain soon followed.
The date on which the switch is made varies around the world. Daylight Saving Time begins for most of the United States on the first Sunday of April. Time reverts to standard time on the last Sunday of October. In the European Union, Summer Time begins the last Sunday in March and ends the last Sunday in October. In the southern hemisphere where Summer comes in December, Daylight Saving Time is observed from October to March.
In the U.S., each time zone switches at 2 a.m. in that time zone, so Los Angeles makes the switch 3 hours later than New York. In the European Union, all time zones change simultaneously at 1 am Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time).
During Daylight Saving Time, clocks are moved forward an hour, which effectively moves an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening. In the Fall, clocks are moved back an hour.
In the U.S., the changeover time was chosen to be 2 am because most bars and restaurants are closed by then, However, some confusion does occur. In many states, liquor cannot be served after 2 a.m. But at 2 a.m. in the Fall, the time is moved back one hour. So, can bars serve liquor for an additional hour? Many stay open an extra hour in the Fall, others do not. Perhaps 3 am would have been a better choice.
Daylight Saving Time is not observed in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, most of the Eastern Time Zone portion of Indiana, and most of Arizona. The Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona observes Daylight Saving Time, because The Navajo Nation spans three states.
Many fire departments encourage people to get in the habit of changing the battery in the smoke detector when they change their clocks, simply because linking it to the time change makes it easier to remember to do it. A working smoke detector more than doubles a person's chances of surviving a home fire, yet although more than 90 percent of homes in the United States have smoke detectors, it is estimated that one third of those smoke detectors have dead or missing batteries.
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