DST

Daylight Savings Time.

Last week I had the wonderful thought that my running in the dark was over, at least until next November or December.  Ah......  No more flashlight and/or headlamp.  No more, even with the illumination, stepping in pot holes or on ruts on the shoulders--well at least not as often.

Nope.  I forgot about Daylight Savings Time.  How disappointing, Sun AM, to think about heading out to run at 7:30 and it's still dark out!  Oh, no......  On the AMs I work, I am usually out there by 5:30, if not before.  The past few weeks I finished up on those days in an hour of daylight.  I'll have to wait a few more weeks for that again.

I think Ben Franklin, perhaps with his tongue in his cheek, proposed it back in the mid-1700s.  I have my doubts about that, mostly because time was not at all standard back then; it was a local matter due to transportation and communications of the day.  The US enacted some DST during the First World War, in an attempt to help the war effort.  This was the rationale, too, in the 1960s when Congress passed The Uniform Time Act (?) and later tweaks in the '70s--to help save energy.

The argument that farmers benefit was shot down, I think, in the '70s.  One farmer said it doesn't affect him one way or the other.  "I start to plow when the sun comes up and I stop when the sun goes down."

I think some studies have shown this is not necessarily so, but I don't know for sure.  I know I'm not a big fan of it, unless......  There are some studies that show increased physical problems, such as more heart attacks the first couple of days after it goes into effect, circadian rhythms that run amok for a few weeks, interruptions of sleep, etc.  I have no idea if these are true, partially or otherwise.

I think when Indiana enacted DST about a decade ago, energy usage actually increased.  I'm not sure if that is so or, even if it is, if the enactment of DST was the cause.  (How do they determine that, the specificity?)  There is some evidence that auto accidents increase significantly the day or two after DST goes into effect; I guess people, from lack of sleep, are more tired behind the wheel?

Once it kicks in, there are more daylight hours at the end of the day and fewer at the beginning.  I noted how this affects my early AM running, but only to April or so.  The argument goes that now people can better use the outside time.  Maybe......

I don't know if this is feasible, but maybe the solution would be to have DST year-round; but then would it be "DST" or not, just regular time?  And would our circadian rhythms be continually fouled?

I figure some folks somewhere must be making money off of this.