Fancy That Friday – Spring Ahead, Fall Back

It’s that time of year again. Time for those of us with children or animals to put ourselves through weeks of readjustment torture. Even those of you empty nesters or those without kids can I’m sure relate to feeling slightly jetlagged yourselves for a day or two. No, I’m not suggesting that everyone takes a trip across time zones at this time of year. What I am talking about is Daylight Saving Time. Not to be confused with Daylight Savings Time, which according to this website doesn’t exist.

And now, in typical Friday fashion here at sweet mama entropy, I offer up some Daylight Saving Time facts - largely useless but hopefully entertaining just the same:

Why do we do it? Daylight Saving Time (DST, as I’ll refer to it from now on) serves several purposes. First, DST (or "Summer Time" in many places in the world) makes better use of daylight. We get an extra hour of daylight in the evening during the DST months.

Secondly, DST saves energy – about 1% each day. During the longer daylight hours DST, we use less electricity for lighting and appliances. And we tend to spend the “longer” days outdoors, thus not needing to “electrify” our houses.

And thirdly, DST has a public health benefit. It has been observed in several studies from both the U.S. and Great Britain that during DST net traffic accidents and fatalities decrease by almost 1%. While there is a slight increase in morning accidents during this period, the decreased number of evening accidents more than makes up for it.

Whose idea was it in the first place? Benjamin Franklin's. He wrote about the idea in 1784 while in Paris as an American delegate.

When is the DST period? In the United States, DST begins at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of April when we move our clocks forward one hour (or spring ahead) and ends at 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday of October when we move our clocks back one hour (fall back). However, because of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 signed by President George W. Bush on August 8, 2005, this will all be changing in 2007. Starting in that year, DST will start on the second Sunday of March and end the first Sunday of November. Note: We may not have the new schedule for long. Congress has the right to revert DST back to the time schedule we use now once a study on the DST shift has been completed by the Department of Energy.

Disclaimer: Those of my readers who happen to be from Arizona will probably find this post a little more than largely useless as that state doesn’t observe DST.

Confession: The information for this post was largely obtained from this website.