Daylight Saving Time or British Summer Time. The US has just gone through it. We will be going through it soon. After all these years, I still don’t get it. Why do we have to do this?

Proponents of DST point out all the benefits of using the extra hour of daylight. What are they talking about? Just because you move the clock forward does not add any extra daylight. In fact, you just lost an hour of your day. How about the argument that farmers use that extra hour to work? Again, how did you gain an hour? If farmers want to make use of the daylight, get up an hour earlier in the summer or finish an hour later. Days are longer in the summertime, but the number of hours you work stay the same. So you get the same number of hours of daylight, whether you move the clock forward or you leave them the same. According to an article on Yahoo!, there is the argument that more accidents occur outside of daylight hours, so if we had DST year-round, we could prevent 195 deaths to motor vehicle occupants and 171 pedestrian fatalities. They forget that if we had DST year-round, it would be the same as having the standard time year round. Having DST does not add daylight hours!!! Daylight is a naturally occurring event, which is longer in the summer.

The Yahoo! article also presented data about health problems that occur during the first week of DST. That should be enough to call for an end to all this messing about with the clocks. Not to mention all the confusion around the world when one country changes its time, but the others have not, or even when the country (US) has different areas that do not change with the times. I had completely forgotten about it, but will have to take care if I call the US.

DST is a pointless exercise in confusion and sleep disturbance. If it was left to a vote, I’m sure most people would agree with me in wanting to abolish it.