President-elect Donald Trump on Friday confirmed that Republicans will work together to ditch Daylight Saving Time, the practice of changing the clocks by an hour twice a year.
President-elect Donald Trump on Friday confirmed that Republicans will work together to ditch Daylight Saving Time, the practice of changing the clocks by an hour twice a year.
Some people want DST all year and others want Standard, because depending on where in the country you live–the latitude you are at, and whether you live at the east or west edge of your time zone makes a big difference in your experience of them.
One solution is to adjust the time zone boundaries to make the timing work out better for different locations: making the lines a bit more diagonal will help, and/or add another zone so each zone is narrower and there’s not as much difference in sunrise/sunset times from one edge to the other.
Another idea is, don’t choose between DST and Standard, choose halfway between them: at the next time change, change it by only 1/2 hour instead of a full hour, and leave it there. This may sound strange but there are other countries whose times are offset by 1/2 hour from the others, so it’s not that unusual. So you’re halfway between DST and Standard all year round, so it’s not a big difference and is a good compromise.
Of course it’s always too dark in winter, but combine both of the above mitigations and you minimize any problems from leaving clocks the same all year, no matter what part of the country you live in.
A few states can move a time zone, but northern states really benefit from the change. Daylight varies a ton seasonally in the north compared to south, Panama City has about 10-14 hours, but Seattle has about 8.5-16 hours