Are you ready to “fall back” for Daylight Saving Time? The clocks will change soon, but not in some states.
Daylight Saving Time 2024 ends on Sunday, Nov. 3, at 2 a.m. Computers, TVs, cell phones and other digital devices will automatically update at that time, but most people will need to manually turn clocks back (if they’re non-digital) a full hour the night before (on Saturday, Nov. 2).
Daylight Saving Time, also colloquially referred to as “daylight savings time,” begins on the second Sunday in March and ends the first Sunday of November. We always “spring forward” (losing an hour) when DST begins and “fall back” (gaining an extra hour) when it ends.
But some states don’t change their clocks at all.
Arizona (except for the Navajo Nation), Hawaii, and the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands do not observe Daylight Saving Time. They observe Standard Time year-round, while other states (including New York) spend half the year in Standard Time and the other half in DST.
Despite some confusion in recent years, residents in New York and other states still have to change their clocks twice a year. The U.S. Senate approved a bipartisan bill known as the Sunshine Protection Act in 2022, but it never advanced in the House after lawmakers failed to agree on keeping standard time or making daylight savings time permanent. Similar bills have been introduced in the New York state legislature to end the changing of clocks in the Empire State, but no progress has been made.
Daylight Saving Time was first established during World War I to conserve fuel for war industries. The law was repealed after WWI ended, but was re-established by Congress during World War II due to energy consumption and became U.S. law in 1966 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Uniform Time Act, establishing uniform start and end times within standard time zones. The policy, regulated by the Department of Transportation, aims to save energy and reduce car crashes and crime.
But according to USA Today, Hawaii does not observe the time change because of its proximity to the equator, causing very little change in hours of daylight throughout the year. Arizona also did not adopt the Uniform Time Act because making sunset occur an hour later during the hottest months of the year wasn’t ideal for the state’s desert climate.
Some health experts say eliminating Daylight Saving Time (or making it permanent) in other states would be a “bad idea.” A neurologist and spokesman for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine said not changing clocks would make most of America feel like it’s suffering “permanent jet lag.”
One of the benefits of changing the clocks is it allows for longer days in the summer with sunset occurring after 8 p.m., and makes it easier for children to get to school bus stops in winter when days are shorter. For example, making DST permanent would mean sunrise occurs at 8:15 a.m. on the first day of winter, while turning clocks back puts sunrise around 7:15 a.m. on December 21.
Daylight Saving Time was kept after World War II because Americans were believed to use less energy by extending summer daylight into the evening. However, a 2008 Department of Energy study found that DST reduces annual energy use by just 0.03 percent, and another study by the University of California-Santa Barbara found DST might even increase energy consumption.
Despite the controversy, officials see it as a good opportunity to remind Americans to replace the batteries in their smoke detectors when we switch to and from daylight savings time. The Firemen’s Association of the State of New York says that 60 percent of home fire deaths occur in homes without working smoke alarms.
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Publish date : 2024-09-30 23:44:00
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