Feeling Wasted

Why, oh why, are we still doing daylight savings time? I mean, it runs from March to November now. That’s nine months out of the year. Why not just make it year round, and save us the trouble of adjusting to this twice each year? The whole thing is basically a trick, after all, designed to get us to spend more money. Apparently people spend more money if it is light out when they’re shopping. But if it’s good for 9 months of the year, why not go whole hog? Besides, I’ll bet a lot of people don’t even know if we just came OFF of DST,or just sent ON DST.

By shifting to 100% DST, we could avoid the annual loss of sleep. More importantly, it would allow the daylight to ebb and flow naturally. These sudden shifts are not good for our natural body rythms, and the nation (heck, the World) suffers for it. Check out this study regarding the increase in traffic accidents in the days following the time shift. Seventeen Percent! Think of the damaged vehicles! Think of the injured drivers! Think of the injured passengers, some of them likely children!


- Say, that gives me an idea. Maybe I can get MADD or AAA to start campaigning for this. They always claim to be about safety (though I’d say MADD is actually about a return to prohibition), they’d be perfect for the job! I envision a world where daylight ebbs and flows naturally, a world where I'm not exhausted each spring and depressive each autumn due to sudden shifts in my schedule. Is there really any reason we can't just go there?