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The One Thing Most Americans Agree With is Ending Daylight Savings Time Forever
This semi-annual circus of jerking time forward and back needs to go away
Not surprisingly, over half of Americans surveyed favor doing away with Daylight Savings Time (DST). In two more days, March 13, 2022, it will happen again. The abrupt addition or deletion of a single hour a day, at some arbitrary date in the spring and fall, no longer serves a net useful purpose, if it ever did. The purported benefits are making it safer for school children, joggers, and bicyclists to operate during daylight and more retail shopping after work when it is not dark. The negatives are increased heart attack rates by 10% on Monday or Tuesday following the March change. And there is an increase in cluster headaches during the November fall backward. Also, fatal auto accidents increase shortly after both time changes.
Fortunately, one state, Arizona, never adopted DST. With a little bit of research, I looked at Arizona to see if any of the purported advantages held up. According to one study from 2012, Arizona retail sales were comparable to most other states. When bicycle fatalities by the state were studied, Arizona came in number nine, only one slot worse than California. However, it is unclear if the study was done per capita to correct the population size.
