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The problem with permanent DST in northern states is that it means for much of winter the morning commute is in darkness. Yes, it means more light during the ev
by tzs 3y ago
The problem with permanent DST in northern states is that it means for much of winter the morning commute is in darkness. Yes, it means more light during the evening commute, but the morning commute needs light more than does the evening commute.
That's because generally road conditions are more likely to be worse in the morning than in the evening. It's generally colder in the mornings meaning more chances of ice on the roads. There's also more likely to be snow on the roads--by the evening you've had a day's traffic helping clear the roads.
Also in the morning you've got significant overlap between the morning adult commute and children walking or biking to school, so by making the morning commute happen in darkness you are combining the time when road conditions are worst, the time when you've got the most pedestrians and cyclists, and the time you've got the worst lighting.
Schools generally get out well before the adult evening commute starts, so if that has to take place in the dark at least you don't have nearly as many pedestrians and cyclists to deal with.
- amanaplanacanal 3y agoSeems like changing school start time would be a simple fix for that.
- tzs 3y agoThat might fix the problem of kids walking and biking in the dark, but it still leaves the issue of the morning being the time when driving is the most difficult. Also I'm not sure you can push school start time back far enough to matter. School hours are generally shorter than adult work hours (especially for elementary school), so in a family where both parents work away from home you are going to have some time where the kids are out of school but the parents aren't home. I suspect that "kids get home a couple hours before the parents do" works out better than "kids leave home an hour after the parents".
- _ph_ 3y agoAnd you have basically undone the effect of permanent DST.
- MightyBuzzard 3y agoNo, the problem is that DST is the incorrect time. If you want to stop changing the clocks, you set them all to the correct time and leave them alone. You do not declare "We shall be wrong from now on!"
- zzo38computer 3y agoDST isn't "incorrect", but it is a convention that is no good. Standard time is a better convention.
- MightyBuzzard 3y ago[dead]
- bwanab 3y agoIsn't the actual problem that geographic regions within time zones have wildly different natural times? E.G. Bangor Maine and Detroit Michigan are in the same time zone. The sun rises and sets almost an hour earlier in Bangor than it does in Detroit. Which time is correct?
- MightyBuzzard 3y ago[dead]
- BobaFloutist 3y agoDST should just be amortized along the duration. While people complain about whether or not they'd prefer to have light in the morning or evening, the real problem is trying to adjust your sleep schedule by an hour in one fell swoop. That made sense when you had to remember manually adjust any time-keeping devices, but digital clocks can mostly adjust themselves these days, so it would be fairly trivial to just have it move with the light, which would make the sleep adjustment much less painful.
- maxerickson 3y agoMy morning commute is gonna be in darkness either way. Sunrise tomorrow is at 7:30. With DST, I would have more light after my evening commute.
- xboxnolifes 3y agoExactly. EST means we get door to door darkness on both commutes in the winter. It's awful.
- beached_whale 3y agoI see it as their time and my time. I get paid to be in the dark, but having light after work to do my things is great. Come December, without DST, it's dark 1/2 after work but 1.5hrs would be very useful.
- maxerickson 3y agoSome commute related downside that isn't preference based, increases deer strikes: https://twitter.com/ndrewhahn/status/1721537278672036085?t=jPCgx687l5HYOuuTnPd92g&s=19 https://twitter.com/ndrewhahn/status/1721537278672036085?t=j...