Daylight Savings Time means shifting the standard time forward by one hour in November and back one hour in March in an attempt to accommodate the constantly changing daylight cycle. Although the Senate twice unanimously passed a bill to end the antiquated practice of daylight savings in the U.S., the House of Representatives failed to ratify it, keeping the current system in place.
This system is not just outdated, but has never been in our best interest. While the shift forward in November is relatively harmless, the loss of an hour in the early morning of March 12th every year can be deadly.
The British Medical Journal reports a 24 percent increase in heart attacks the day after the time shifts in March, the largest relative increase in heart attacks on any weekday out of the year.
This is not the only harmful side effect of moving the clocks going forward. There is a 6.5 percent increase in fatal car crashes in the U.S. on March 12 according to the American Economic Society. The report also shows that there is a spike in suicides.
Daylight Savings Time was introduced during World War I as an attempt to save fuel as many thought it used up more gasoline when lighting and running the country during the dark morning. This change was solidified and extended as a part of the 2005 Energy Policy Act. But the continuation of this practice actually dissipated the country’s energy resources more quickly according to a study done by Yale.
The failure to end this outdated practice is clear negligence of our legislative bodies. In this current congressional session, only 12 bills have been enacted into law. There is a clear unanimous decision to be made. The failure to make it is causing countless deaths.
It is no secret that many people today have little to no trust in the federal government. This is exemplified by the lack of common sense shown by our elected officials to undo something that was flawed from the start after it was passed by their counterparts on two separate occasions.
The clear question to ask here is why they did not pass the bill to end Daylight Savings Time. This is because they ran out of time in their session to pass it both times. It is clear that there is more time spent on partisan issues than on bipartisan issues.
“I think a lot of young people don’t trust the government,” said Will Barr, a junior at Northwest Academy. “There is always culture war stuff that we are being distracted by.”
Barr is not wrong in thinking that much of the current political climate is being distracted by more social issues and scare tactics that take up most of our time but rarely end in meaningful legislation.
The failure to end Daylight Savings Time is direct evidence of harmful legislation that often affects lower income communities. The House did not run out of time in their legislative session because they were passing more meaningful and larger bills. They spent their time quarreling over the major infrastructure bill that President Biden introduced. While this did partially pass and is making its way into actual funds now, it did not need to take nearly as much time as it did to make it past the House.
Daylight Savings Time is going to persist for as long as the House refuses to pass it. It will continue screwing with our schedules, causing traffic deaths and heart attacks all in the name of saving fuel that it is actually losing.
The only state in the mainland U.S. unburdened from Daylight Savings Time is Arizona. Since the practice ended for the state in 1968, it has been working fully functionally, not losing fuel or energy, and saving lives on the road. They initially made the switch in order to save energy, cooling down their houses during the day due to the extreme heat.
Arizona residents are extremely happy to be without Daylight Savings. In one article written in the Arizona Central Newspaper, the writers joke about the silliness of Daylight Savings Time and exhibit their state’s pride in not succumbing to the pressure of daylight savings time.
“It’s one of the few times Arizonans get to feel smug about how reasonable and rational we are compared to most of the country,” wrote Scott Craven and Weldon B. Johnson in AzCentral.
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