> the inkling of light they get during their winter commute
It's not an inkling. Unless you roll out of bed and instantly onto your commute, you're getting natural sunlight through all your windows for hours every morning. That's exactly when you need it.
> you're getting natural sunlight through all your windows for hours every morning
Hah "hours". Not in Northern Europe you're not. My commute is dark on both sides. If I had to choose which side I'd prefer to be brighter I'd prefer the end of the day rather than feeling like my daylight has been wasted in the office. I shift my schedule in winter to make up for this as best I can.
I guess. I'm at 46 degrees and civil twilight at Christmas starts at 7am. I get up at 6:30, so yeah, dead of winter, I spend 30 minutes in darkness. But that's better than 1:30.
I guess it kinda hinges on this idea of "wasting" daylight. I don't feel like that. I want the sun to wake me up, and have no problem doing whatever I like when it's dark in the evening. Do people generally go on hikes after work? I go out for drinks. haha
56 degrees here (Denmark, and grew up in Ireland @ 53 degrees).
> I guess it kinda hinges on this idea of "wasting" daylight. I don't feel like that. I want the sun to wake me up
The problem is that during the darkest parts of winter, even if I postpone my wake up as long as possible, I'm still getting up in the dark if I want to be able to commute into work on time. There's no sunlight waking me up.
> Do people generally go on hikes after work? I go out for drinks. haha
No, but I still have to do things like walk the dog, do the shopping on the way home. I find it a lot more pleasant starting out that part of day with a bit of sunlight.
Also, yes, drinks. This is Northern Europe after all.
EDIT to add: Civil twilight in December where I am starts ~07:40, and I also get up around 06:30 (when not dealing with insomnia like tonight).
Also from Denmark, but I would prefer permanent standard time (just like it was prior to 1982); yes, it's still dark in the morning, but at least I won't have to wait months before I start seeing sunlight for my commute. I can only manage the darkness for so long, before the winter depression truly takes hold. Permanent summer time would be devastating to a lot of people here.
07:40 still sounds pretty early when compared to 66 degrees where we could expect the civil twilight after 09:00 in December. You'd go to school at 08:00 in the dark and go home at 15:00, also in the dark.
> The problem is that during the darkest parts of winter, even if I postpone my wake up as long as possible, I'm still getting up in the dark if I want to be able to commute into work on time. There's no sunlight waking me up.
Russia tried all-year DST for several years and ended up getting rid of it. So even in more-north regions, where you'd think it would not matter, people still do not seem to like all-year / permanent DST (pDST).
Yes. Of course. That’s the whole point of shifting the daylight hours.
You get off work and head to the crag to climb a few routes before it gets dark. It’s like a little mini weekend every evening for those summer months.
But yeah, if you never take advantage of that, it’s understandable to want some light in the morning I guess. But yikes, why not go out and enjoy the sunshine?
Bike after work! (own latitude - 45.4N). In the summer the days are long enough that, with daylight saving time, you can be an office slave and still have time for a significant bike ride after work (having biked to work in the first place).
Also at this latitude, without daylight saving time, the sun would be waking you up at 4AM! Totally happy with the time switch, but if it has to go, yes, give me daylight saving time all the time. Winter is dark anyway.
I used to bike commute every day, and rather enjoyed the cold rides home in the dark in the middle of winter. I always have great hear, and plenty of lighting. I guess my weird brain associates that stuff with winter holidays. I like trick-or-treating in the dark too. It just seems like where they belong.
But, what a terrible argument! "I prefer", haha. Oh well.
Yes, I like to exercise outdoors after work. Much more pleasant when the sun is up. Especially if I'm cycling - even with multiple blinking lights, I don't feel particularly visible to drivers.
That said, with the shortest day's light ending before 5pm, even shifting to near 6pm doesn't really help - I'm at the office to 5-ish and if I'm lucky I can be ready to run/bike/whatever by 5:45, so its going dark mid-workout at best.
And I'm up at 5am, so in the dark most of the year. Ditching DST would make it daylight in mid-summer, but I do really enjoy having daylight past 8pm, so I can sit outside and read.
One of the most depressing days of the year in B.C. is when daylight savings ends, and clocks are switched back an hour in November. The sun goes from setting at ~6pm to ~5pm, and you officially end work with it dark out. I'm very happy we are switching to permanent daylight time.
There's nothing more glorious than those late summer solstice sunsets w/ daylight time, where the sun doesn't set until 10pm. Great for festivals and planning outdoor activities with friends.
That article is hardly conclusive. It states the biggest reason for the unpopular response was a belief that the incidence of traffic accidents involving young children walking to school increased. It also states that wasn’t factually supported.
It also cites one opinion poll. And we have to keep in mind this happened FIFTY years ago.
I’m not even a permanent DST advocate. It’s just weird to me the link you shared does nothing to substantiate your position.
Update: my suspicions were correct — there was a public panic caused by parents groups that had no basis in fact:
> Considerable opposition to observing DST during the winter had come from school groups, such as the National School Boards Association, which expressed concern over darkness during the morning school commute.[47][48]
> When members of Congress introduced legislation to repeal the practice, they stated it jeopardized children's safety, citing the deaths of eight schoolchildren in Florida since DST had been enacted a few weeks prior
Ironically:
> A meta-analysis by Rutgers researchers found that permanent DST would eliminate 171 pedestrian fatalities (a 13% reduction) per year
This whole debate is cyclical[1]. I expect in a few years everyone will be complaining about not enough daylight in the mornings and DST seasonal changes will come back.
> Permanent daylight saving time was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in January 1974, but there were complaints of children going to school in the dark and working people commuting and starting their work day in pitch darkness during the winter. By October 1974, President Gerald Ford signed a law repealing year-round daylight savings time.
It's a perfect example of "the public" not really knowing what they want or perhaps different factions (unknowingly) wanting different things and not realizing this until the change actually happens. This isn't helped by how these ideas are often oversold as having no downsides instead of being realistic about what the trade-off is.
I know that I want an end to clock changes more than I want the time zone to be optimized. Both spring and fall clock changes cause a spike in car crashes and serious health events, which I suspect of being worse than the problem they're trying to solve.
It also improves the rush hours by enlarging the time range. Most jobs start at 9am or later, so if kids also started at 9am or later the morning rush hour (for traffic but also public transportation) would be even worse.
School ends at 3pm so that the teachers, who work a 9-5 like you, get two hours after class to grade homework and prepare lessons for the next school day.
fwiw, getting sunlight from behind a modern window is almost the same as getting it from a led or lightbulb, vastly insufficient. The glass filters out the specific frequencies that are most beneficial to us. You need to get out...
It really depends on your interests: I use daylight for sports after work, really like being able to surf until 22:30 midsummer (52 degrees), so DST works for me. On the other hand, also don't mind the switching between wintertime and summertime, it's just like a minor jetlag we all have no problem with when going on holiday.
>it's just like a minor jetlag we all have no problem with when going on holiday.
I can only say speak for yourself, some of us have major problems with jet lag. Especially as someone on the west coast, I am exhausted any time I have to travel east for work
Here in Ireland in December civil twilight starts at like 08h, and if you are lucky, you'll see the sun only at 08h30. For many, that's mostly darkness all the way to the office.
Well, days get longer without DST too (in countries far enough from the equator, but those nearer to the equator don't have to worry about DST anyway). What bothers me about DST is that just before the clock is moved forward, the sun starts rising before I have to get up. Then the clock is moved, and suddenly I have to get up when it's pitch dark again! Great...
You sometimes hear that farmers are behind Daylight Savings Time, but that's not true. Farmers are self-employed and can set their hours to be whenever they want. If they need to work longer hours at harvest time, they can just do it. They don't need to monkey around with clocks to do this.
That is literally what permanent DST is— benefitting people who like to wake up before sunrise. Night owls want to wake up after it's been light already.
Farming is just the investment part of the job. Unless they're US corn or soy farmers living primarily on subsidies, they still generally have to sell what they grow. The agribusiness side means dealing with the rest of civilization on terms that farmers don't get to set. So do the very non-trivial parts of farming where you have to regularly buy supplies, service equipment, and otherwise deal with employees (yours or others) and their labor regulations.
This description of farming also generally ignores animal husbandry, which outside of factory farms also ties work to the sun regardless of what the clock says, what part of the year it is, or what latitude you're on. When the rest of the world you have to interact with changes their clock, you have to both accommodate the animals' lack of understanding and desire for routine and adjust your own work around it. Dairy farmers aren't putting lighting in cow barns for fun or aesthetics, they're manipulating day/night schedules to get cows on the times that commerce relies on.
https://washingtonian.com/2022/03/15/the-us-tried-permanent-...
> the inkling of light they get during their winter commute
It's not an inkling. Unless you roll out of bed and instantly onto your commute, you're getting natural sunlight through all your windows for hours every morning. That's exactly when you need it.