Permanent daylight saving time a permanently bad idea

OPINION:

Daylight saving time ends at long last at 2 a.m. Sunday, when clocks will reset abruptly to 1 a.m.

People who like moving an hour of sunlight to days’ end in early March can take solace in the fact that standard time now prevails in most of the continental United States for just four months of the year. Like Freddy Krueger, the nightmare of DST will return on March 8.

Calling it a “50-50 issue,” President Trump was somewhat ambivalent early on about how he thinks Americans can avoid the economic and physiological disruptions associated with changing their clocks twice a year. Then, in April, he asked Congress to pass legislation allowing states to adopt DST year-round.

The president wrote on Truth Social that the House and Senate should “push hard for more Daylight at the end of a day.” He went on to say that permanent DST is “very popular and, most importantly, no more changing of the clocks, a big inconvenience and, for our government, A VERY COSTLY EVENT!!!”

Although Mr. Trump should be applauded for his awareness of the costs of switching to DST in the late winter (not spring, as the saying, “spring forward, fall back” suggests), and then back again to standard time in midautumn, his remedy — adopting DST year-round — is the exact opposite of what should be done.

Permanent standard time is the proper solution.

The reason standard time is the better solution is that it aligns sunlight and human body clocks (circadian rhythms) more closely. The scientific evidence accumulated over the past few decades of the health effects of springing forward and falling back points in one direction only: Forcing nearly everyone to move the hands of their clocks by one hour in either direction is not only a Trumpian “big inconvenience”; it is also “very costly.”

The end of DST causes more automobile accidents because many commuters suddenly find themselves driving home in the dark. Similarly, “losing” an hour’s sleep immediately after DST starts also causes more traffic accidents. Changing clocks twice yearly also, according to research from Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health and others, has been associated with increased stress, heart attacks, strokes and other serious health consequences.

If you think the many downsides of DST can be avoided by making DST permanent, think again.

Though few remember, the federal government tried that some 50 years ago, launching a two-year-long experiment with year-round DST on Jan. 6, 1974. Although 79% of the public initially favored the change, it lasted just 10 months. It quickly lost favor after predawn accidents killed or injured several schoolchildren. Permanent DST’s popularity tumbled to 42%, according to opinion polling at the time, and the experiment was ended for good in October 1974.

Fans of making daylight saving time permanent never seem to quit, however. Their latest effort is called the Sunshine Protection Act, introduced earlier this year by Florida Republicans Vern Buchanan in the House and Rick Scott in the Senate.

The reason the permanently bad idea of year-round DST won’t die is because the Uniform Time Act of 1966, allowing U.S. states and territories to stay on standard time year-round — which only Arizona, Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have done — doesn’t allow states and territories to adopt DST year-round. For that, the 1966 law would have to be amended or repealed.

Ironically, Arizona contains two time zones from March to November. Although most Arizonans observe standard time, those living on Navajo Nation lands must follow the diktats of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and switch to and from DST. Thus, for eight months of the year, some Arizonans observe standard time, while others observe daylight saving time.

Not resetting its clocks in lockstep with the rest of the continental United States has not caused Arizona to implode or to fly off into outer space. Rather, it has enabled most Arizonans to avoid the costly stupidity — and danger — of falling back only to spring forward again four months from now.

• William F. Shughart II, distinguished research adviser of the Independent Institute in Oakland, California, is J. Fish Smith professor in public choice at Utah State University’s Jon M. Huntsman School of Business.