Posted on 03/16/2022 10:08:39 AM PDT by PROCON
The sun rose at 8:27 AM on January 7, 1974. Children in the Washington area had left for school in the dark that morning, thanks to a new national experiment during a wrenching energy crisis: most of the US went to year-round daylight saving time beginning on January 6. “It was jet black” outside when her daughter was supposed to leave for school, Florence Bauer of Springfield told the Washington Post. “Some of the children took flashlights with them.”
The change would benefit Americans in the long run, predicted Steve Grossman of the Department of Transportation. Yes, accidents in the morning darkness may become more common, he said, but longer daylight hours could mean eliminating the hazards of evening commutes: “stress, anxiety, and many drivers have had a couple of drinks,” as he told the Post. Outside the capital, others vowed defiance: Robert Yost, the mayor of St. Francis, Kansas said his town’s council “felt it was time to put our foot down and stop this monkey business.”
Now as the idea of permanent daylight saving time has gained some political momentum, it’s probably worth a look back to another period when the US tinkered with time.
Congress had voted on December 14, 1973, to put the US on daylight saving time for two years. President Nixon signed the bill the next day. The US had gone to permanent daylight saving time before, during World War II. Then, too, the measure was enacted to save fuel. Permanent DST wasn’t close to the wackiest idea about time floating around—Paul Mullinax, a geographer who worked at the Pentagon, came up with the idea of putting the continental US on a single time zone. “USA Time” would apply from Bangor to Barstow, eliminate jet lag, and standardize TV schedules. His idea even got traction in Congress, via a bill from US Representative Patsy Mink of Hawaii. “The human being is a very adaptive animal,” he said. “There is no reason we have to be a slave to the sun.”
And yet the early-morning darkness quickly proved dangerous for children: A 6-year-old Alexandria girl was struck by a car on her way to Polk Elementary School on January 7; the accident broke her leg. Two Prince George’s County students were hurt in February. In the weeks after the change, eight Florida kids were killed in traffic accidents. Florida’s governor, Reubin Askew, asked for Congress to repeal the measure. “It’s time to recognize that we may well have made a mistake,” US Senator Dick Clark of Iowa said during a speech in Congress on January 28, 1974. In the Washington area, some schools delayed their start times until the sun caught up with the clock.
The factual picture was a bit more complicated. The National Safety Council reported in February that pre-sunrise fatalities had risen to 20 from 18 the year before. In July, Roger Sant, then an assistant administrator-designate for the Federal Energy Administration, wrote a letter to the Post that noted a 1 percent energy saving achieved by going to DST equated to 20,000-30,000 tons of coal not being burned each day. Further, he wrote, accidents had fallen in the afternoons.
By August, though, as the Watergate scandal caused the Nixon administration to crumble, the country was ready to move on from its clock experiments. While 79 percent of Americans approved of the change in December 1973, approval had dropped to 42 percent three months later, the New York Times reported. Seven days after President Nixon resigned, US Senator Bob Dole of Kansas introduced an amendment in August that would end the DST experiment. It passed. A similar bill passed the House. In late September, the full Congress passed a bill that would restore standard time on October 27. President Ford signed it on October 5. Energy savings, a House panel noted, “must be balanced against a majority of the public’s distaste for the observance of Daylight Saving Time.”
I remember the kerfuffle, but it is still way better than changing the clocks twice a year.
“USA Time” would apply from Bangor to Barstow... His idea even got traction in Congress, via a bill from US Representative Patsy Mink of Hawaii”
Of course, the one rep who supported it was from a state that the law wouldn’t apply to!
Boston is in the same time zone as Fort Wayne, Indiana. Today, the sun will set about 57 minutes earlier in Boston than in Fort Wayne. It doesn't matter whether or not we use DST; I'd make the case that these two places probably shouldn't be operating on the same clock.
....and he complained about an hour commute to work, every damn day.
It’d have to be old movies. The last thing I want is to view a giant screen of woke-a-thon.
If it is dangerous for kids to get to school in the dark, let the schools adjust their start/end time accordingly.
That way we can still eliminate the stupid clock switching, which also screws up foreign business because the rest of the world does not change their clocks or changes on a different weekend than the US.
I had to walk with my older sister.....That was brutal.
“All I know is that I want the sun overhead at noon, the full moon rising on the horizon at 6:00PM and overhead at midnight.”
Might I interest you in a condominium time share in Equatorial Guinea?
Yeah. If only there was an invention that would create and cast extra light when and where needed. I’m sure someone will think of something!
What did socialists use before kerosene? Electricity!
Heck, even that joke is outdated.
Both sides claimed it was for the children. Now both sides have added the claim to be more green.
a world record ?
I once visited customers in Las Vegas, Mesquite, NV, California, and AZ in one regular 8-9 hr. day., spending time in 7 different time zones. The hard part was keeping appointment times straight.
You can tell this article was written a half century ago, back when it was normal for drivers to have a couple of drinks before driving home. Those were the days!
The change would benefit Americans in the long run, predicted Steve Grossman of the Department of Transportation. Yes, accidents in the morning darkness may become more common, he said, but longer daylight hours could mean eliminating the hazards of evening commutes: “stress, anxiety, and many drivers have had a couple of drinks,” as he told the Post. Outside the capital, others vowed defiance: Robert Yost, the mayor of St. Francis, Kansas said his town’s council “felt it was time to put our foot down and stop this monkey business.”
I was in college, didn’t phase me.
Always a whiner somewhere.
Kids here go to screwl in the dark most winter days anyway. Big deal.
Hand wringers and bed wetters always have a problem with just about anything.
The evening light is much better. At least you get some during the winter. Most of the time I went to work and got home in the dark not seeing the house in the sunlight for days and days.
Anybody that likes changing the clocks is a brain dead moron.
Add to that the frustration that Mom or Dad can spend an extra couple minutes chatting with the bus driver while a line of traffic waits.
In my day, Mom and Dad were off to work and the kids were expected to walk the quarter mile or so to the nearest bus stop and catch it themselves. Which we did.
It didn't take us long to learn the trick of setting up a telescope in Mom and Dad's upstairs bedroom so we could see when the bus was getting close. That saved waiting outside longer than necessary in the North Dakota winters of sub-zero temperatures.
There were fun times as well. Last day of school, squirt guns were allowed on the bus. During my senior year, I placed a bucket of water by our roadside stop to soak a girl who had always got the better of me in those years. Not hard to do when she sat by an open window. No school district would pay for air conditioning to use for only a few days in late May/early June or late August/early September.
They could've suspended me from riding the bus for that stunt, but it was worth it!
I agree. The time zones are impractically large, and large urban areas like Boston, and Chicago, too, might do better in the time zone to the east of them, or adopting perhaps a half-hour difference.
What does that have to do with anything?
Change schools to Winter hours. Leave everyone else alone.
Not me either.
Or just split the difference and move the clocks a half an hour and leave it.
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