The older I get, the more I realize that our most precious commodity is not gold or silver, but time. Time with our loved ones and friends. Time to sip a cold lemonade from a lawn chair on a summer’s day. Time to root for our favorite athletes and athletic teams.
The U.S. House of Representatives has decided to mess with our time. On July 14, the House voted to make daylight saving time (DST) permanent in the United States. Locally, Congressmen Bill Huizenga and Tim Walberg voted for permanent DST.
Two other candidates for statewide office in Michigan had different reactions to the bill. Representative Haley Stevens candidate for U.S. Senate voted against permanent DST. Congressman John James candidate for Governor did not vote on the bill according to the Congressional record. Neither Mike Rogers nor Abdul El-Sayed running for U.S. Senate nor Jocelyn Benson running for governor are in the House of Representatives so could not vote on the bill. It would be interesting to have these five candidates on record on this matter.
Currently, Michigan changes clocks twice a year: springing forward one hour to DST in March and falling back one hour to standard time in November. Michigan is the westernmost state in the Eastern Time Zone, although not all of Michigan observes Eastern Time. Four Upper Peninsula counties bordering Wisconsin have chosen to follow Central Time, like their Wisconsin neighbors. Four other states south of us, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Florida are also split partially in eastern time and partially in central time.
Michigan City and Laporte County bordering New Buffalo recognize central time. South Bend due south of us is eastern time. That Indiana city has the following sunrises and sunsets like ours on December 31, sunrise is at about 8:10 a.m. standard time and sunset is at 5:23 p.m. standard time. If Berrien County were to switch to year-round DST, sunrise would not be until 9:10 a.m. in late December. School children would be waiting in the deepest dark for school buses, and 16-year-old teens would be driving to school in pitch darkness if we remained on year-round DST.
The United States tried permanent DST at least once before. On January 6, 1974 the United States switched to DST for sixteen months. According to History.com, there was “swift backlash.” History.com further reports that “In cities such as Detroit, Indianapolis, Minneapolis and Seattle, the sun didn’t rise until around 9 a.m. “Almost everybody [was] getting up in the dark and going to work and to school in the dark. The New York Times wrote on January 8 about the disorientation. “Commuter trains … were delayed, many school children missed their free breakfasts, some workers walked to subways and buses with trepidation, and many people felt strange…as the day began an hour earlier for most in an eerie darkness.”
History.com further states “a 16‑year‑old Chicago boy was struck and killed on his way to school and that other children died in predawn accidents in Virginia, Ohio, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and California. The worst cluster occurred in Florida, where eight children were killed in the first weeks of winter DST…Farm families described children “waiting on dark country roads for buses as cars were whizzing past them.”
In short, History.com states that Americans quickly turned against permanent DST. “A University of Chicago survey found support for year‑round DST dropped from 79 percent in December to 42 percent in February.”
Somewhere in my house are the four varsity letters that I earned in golf at my high school in Saginaw County. As a result, I get it, golf fanatics and golf courses like being open until nearly 10 p.m. summer evenings. Yes, there have been a couple Christmas days in my lifetime when Michigan was so warm that golfers were out on the course on December 25. However, snow is more likely to fall and be on the ground in Michigan in the winter than sane golfers are to be on the course.
Perhaps, ice skaters, sledders, and snowboarders could be out an hour later in the winter months if those months were DST. But really, do we really want sixteen-year-olds driving to school in pitch darkness? Shouldn’t we care more about the safety of school children waiting for school buses on poorly lit country roads and side streets than an extra hour of light in the evening?
For this and other reasons, I vote a resounding NO when it comes to permanent DST.
