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The problem is that in parts of the Northeast, permanent EST would have significant deficiencies in the summer while permanent EST-1 would have significant defi

The problem is that in parts of the Northeast, permanent EST would have significant deficiencies in the summer while permanent EST-1 would have significant deficiencies in the winter. Permanent EST: As it is, the sun rises in Boston before 5:30 AM from May 9-July 25, 2.5 months. With permanent EST, the sun would rise before 4:30 AM for those 2.5 months. People would much rather have that sunlight later in the day when they can enjoy it after work, etc. Permanent EST-1: As it is, the sun rises in Boston after 7 AM from Dec 7-Jan 30. With permanent EST-1, the sun would rise after 8 for those ~2 months. This would be a real danger for kids walking to school. Shifting the school day isn't straightforward because of parents work schedules, etc. The response to these is inevitably that we could shift our lives around to adjust to a permanent EST or EST-1, but such shifts would be much more disruptive than people think. It's easy to make a change like this in a southern state -- less so the further north you go.

tropo 9y ago
Just shift the school schedule. Determine the optimal time for Wednesday, round to the nearest 10 minutes, and apply that to the entire week. Considering the student with the longest commute, they should leave their house an hour after there is enough sunlight to make things clearly visible to a typical child in a typical bedroom. The school can't possibly match up with every different work schedule. Matching up with none of them is fair. It's not the school's problem anyway.
zanny 9y ago
You only have the cultural expectation of "always get up at 7am" because of the insane timezone system. If sunrise changes throughout the year, changing the time you wakeup is the natural answer. Having an obtuse and indecipherable timekeeping system instead is insane. The answer is to get up at 5 in the Summer and 7 in the Winter, or even better to get up at 10 in the Summer and 12 in Winter since you would put everyone on UTC. If everyone was on the same time table society would quickly adopt a strategy where business hours shift seasonally. In Summer your hours might be 12-22, in Spring and Fall have them be 13-23, and in Winter have them be 14-00. They already do that, except the government changes everyones clocks at once rather than just changing business hours every season. Its less overhead to change business hours than every clock, especially when you factor international scheduling around DST changes and timezone changes.
- gpvos 9y ago
  I'm with you when you say to get up at 5 in summer and 7 in winter, but putting everyone on UTC, now that's really insane. The people in Australia aren't going to eat lunch at 12 so-called midnight.
  - zanny 9y ago
    No, they wouldn't, they would eat lunch in the middle of their day, which would be centered around the times the sun rises and sets. Just like how days work everywhere pretty much. They just would know what those times are where they live naturally, and know that they can schedule a conference call with someone in London without getting the time off by +/-2 hours depending on if they do the time zone changes properly, know the time zone the other person will be in at the time, know if they are in or out of DST at the same time, etc.
    - dennisgorelik 9y ago
      I think we will, actually, move to UTC ... in about 70 years from now. Currently, international communications are not popular enough to justify move to UTC. But it is already time to get rid of daylight savings switch that we apply 2 times per year.
- ghaff 9y ago
  In other words, DST provides a convenient coordination function that more or less aligns to majority preferences. >Its less overhead to change business hours than every clock I'm not convinced. A LOT of customer-facing business (restaurants, retail, government offices, etc.) have fixed hours. Sure. They can individually publish their "personal DST" shift--which is of course just like having DST for anyone working for them. Personally, I'm generally flexible enough these days that I don't really care much any longer though I'd be fine with New England moving to Atlantic time and eliminating DST.
torstenvl 9y ago
Would it really be a danger for kids walking to school? If dawn didn't happen until after 0800, I could understand the concern. But the time between dawn and sunrise is much safer than the time right after sunrise. When the sun is low in the sky it blinds drivers.

tropo 9y ago

Just shift the school schedule. Determine the optimal time for Wednesday, round to the nearest 10 minutes, and apply that to the entire week. Considering the student with the longest commute, they should leave their house an hour after there is enough sunlight to make things clearly visible to a typical child in a typical bedroom. The school can't possibly match up with every different work schedule. Matching up with none of them is fair. It's not the school's problem anyway.

zanny 9y ago

You only have the cultural expectation of "always get up at 7am" because of the insane timezone system. If sunrise changes throughout the year, changing the time you wakeup is the natural answer. Having an obtuse and indecipherable timekeeping system instead is insane. The answer is to get up at 5 in the Summer and 7 in the Winter, or even better to get up at 10 in the Summer and 12 in Winter since you would put everyone on UTC. If everyone was on the same time table society would quickly adopt a strategy where business hours shift seasonally. In Summer your hours might be 12-22, in Spring and Fall have them be 13-23, and in Winter have them be 14-00. They already do that, except the government changes everyones clocks at once rather than just changing business hours every season. Its less overhead to change business hours than every clock, especially when you factor international scheduling around DST changes and timezone changes.

gpvos 9y ago
I'm with you when you say to get up at 5 in summer and 7 in winter, but putting everyone on UTC, now that's really insane. The people in Australia aren't going to eat lunch at 12 so-called midnight.
- zanny 9y ago
  No, they wouldn't, they would eat lunch in the middle of their day, which would be centered around the times the sun rises and sets. Just like how days work everywhere pretty much. They just would know what those times are where they live naturally, and know that they can schedule a conference call with someone in London without getting the time off by +/-2 hours depending on if they do the time zone changes properly, know the time zone the other person will be in at the time, know if they are in or out of DST at the same time, etc.
  - dennisgorelik 9y ago
    I think we will, actually, move to UTC ... in about 70 years from now. Currently, international communications are not popular enough to justify move to UTC. But it is already time to get rid of daylight savings switch that we apply 2 times per year.
ghaff 9y ago
In other words, DST provides a convenient coordination function that more or less aligns to majority preferences. >Its less overhead to change business hours than every clock I'm not convinced. A LOT of customer-facing business (restaurants, retail, government offices, etc.) have fixed hours. Sure. They can individually publish their "personal DST" shift--which is of course just like having DST for anyone working for them. Personally, I'm generally flexible enough these days that I don't really care much any longer though I'd be fine with New England moving to Atlantic time and eliminating DST.

torstenvl 9y ago

Would it really be a danger for kids walking to school? If dawn didn't happen until after 0800, I could understand the concern. But the time between dawn and sunrise is much safer than the time right after sunrise. When the sun is low in the sky it blinds drivers.