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How Much Do You Know About Daylight Savings Time Coming Sunday March 13?

By Coburn Palmer
Published on: 00:30 PST, Mar 12, 2016

Spring is in the air and that means Daylight Savings Time is coming.

This Sunday, March 13, at 1:59 a.m. the nation’s clocks will “spring forward” one hour, which means we lose an hour of sleep, but gain an hour of daylight during the evening.

The time change will put sunrise at around 7 p.m. for most people.

The practice is also credited with increasing driving safety and reducing the number of auto accidents, David Prerau, the author of Seize the Daylight, told the New York Times.

“For most people, an extra hour of daylight in the evening after work or after school is much more usable than the hour of daylight in the morning.”

It may be a little confusing, but remember that by setting your clocks forward, you gain an hour of daylight.

Safer driving means consumers spend more money and use more gasoline to do it; sports fans also benefit from the increased number of daylight hours.

Not everyone in the world observes Daylight Savings and those countries that do often debate the issue, but the practice is generally credited with reducing the cost of energy and decreasing crime.

There are some states, like Alaska, California, and Rhode Island that are considering doing away with the time change altogether. The question remains, however, whether they want to spend the year with the clocks moved permanently forward, which would give more sunlight at night, or whether it’s better to have more sunlight in the morning, standard time.

How much do you know about Daylight Savings?

English author William Willett wrote “The Waste of Daylight” in 1907 and proposed the first use of daylight savings.

In 1748, Benjamin Franklin published a journal named “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light,” after he noticed Americans burning candles to stay up at night.

Germany and neighboring Austria were the first countries to implement the idea of daylight savings on April 30, 1916, as they attempted to save costs during WWI.

It wasn’t until 1918 that idea of springing forward and falling back came to the United States. President Woodrow Wilson first signed the practice into law in 1918, but Congress repealed it a year later in 1920.

Arizona and Hawaii are the only two states that don’t use Daylight Savings Time DST, and neither do Guam, Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands; Indiana began changing its time in 2006.

There are 70 countries that currently use daylight savings, although some refer to it as “summer time.” In Europe, clocks spring ahead on the last Sunday of March and fall back the last Sunday of October.

Not everyone agrees with using daylight saving time

Contrary to popular belief, farmers are one group of people who adamantly oppose daylight savings time change, Prerau told the New York Times; the time change affects their work habits.

“I don’t know how that ever became a myth, but it is the exact opposite.”

Anti-federalists also oppose daylight savings as unnecessary overreach by the government.

Research about the observation of daylight savings is sharply divided. Opponents of the practice point to an increase in heart attacks, road accidents, and depression in the days following a time change.

Supporters of DST have shown research showing a decrease in auto accidents during the longer daylight hours and an increase when we switch back in the Fall.

Remember, this Sunday March 13 at 1:59 a.m. daylight savings will spring clocks forward, making it abruptly 3 a.m.

[AP Photo/Elise Amendola]

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