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British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time
- beepdyboop 7mo agoAs a dev, I think the entire world should just adopt UTC
- ex-aws-dude 7mo agoThat would be confusing in other ways though, especially traveling In one country lunch is at 1200 another country lunch is at 0500
- rubatuga 7mo agoWow we finally did it
- steve_adams_86 7mo agoI won't complain about the NDP for at least 3 days after this one. This is cause for celebration!
- SpecialistK 7mo agoEven a stopped clock is right twice a day!
- mulmen 7mo agoAnother falsehood programmers believe about time. A stopped clock is only right twice a day if it is a 12 hour clock and only if it’s not set at a leap second or at a skipped time during the shift from standard to daylight time.
- SpecialistK 7mo agoI was being generous. Which wasn't really justified considering Eby's track record.
- brailsafe 7mo agoAt least he has a decent housing minister
- SpecialistK 7mo agoTouche. The rezoning policy is one of the very few things I can give credit for. Since you're discussing BC housing policy, I assume you know of the amazing Uytae Lee?
- brailsafe 7mo agoHe's one of my fave local video ppl, fairly sure we live in the same neighbourhood
- SpecialistK 7mo agoPlease tell him I said hi and that I love the content!!
- brailsafe 7mo agoHaven't met him personally, but it's nice to hear he's as regionally popular as he is. I'm just going off the fact I've seen him around and he's often documenting nearby streets. It's good stuff and super informative.
- SpecialistK 7mo agoI was being tongue in cheek - sorry if it was lost in the text translation!
- OsrsNeedsf2P 7mo agoMy dream world is everyone using 24 hour clocks set to UTC
- boothby 7mo agoMy dream world would have 86400 time zones, one per arc-second of the globe, so we can all sync our clocks at high noon.
- userbinator 7mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_time
- pseudalopex 7mo agohttps://qntm.org/continuous https://qntm.org/continuous
- SpecialistK 7mo agoSounds good on paper, terrible idea in practice.
- pezezin 7mo agoNah, it also sounds terrible on paper.
- SpecialistK 7mo agoI'll correct myself: it sounds good for about 5 seconds before you think about it and realize it's an unworkable idea which creates more problems than it solves.
- __s 7mo agoI have all my clocks set to UTC. Works for me
- bryanlarsen 7mo agoI would have preferred permanent standard time to permanent daylight time. But I accept I'm in the minority, and even permanent daylight time is far superior to changing clocks twice a year.
- jonny_eh 7mo agoIt's "standard" for a reason. Humanity settled on these numbers long ago because they work best. It boggles my mind why anyone would choose otherwise since what we do at any given hour is arbitrary.
- jamie_ca 7mo agoThe US decided (and Canada followed) that daylight time was more correct for the larger portion of the year, presumably it's easier to transition the remaining 4mo to daylight than it is to move 8mo to standard. But also, all the opinion polling (business and individual) was like over 90% in favour of year-round daylight time, so here we are.
- tzs 7mo ago> The US decided (and Canada followed) that daylight time was more correct for the larger portion of the year, presumably it's easier to transition the remaining 4mo to daylight than it is to move 8mo to standard. How is transitioning permanently to one easier than transitioning permanently to the other? How to transition to permanent DST: wait until we are in DST and then stop switching. How to transition to permanent Standard time: wait until we are in standard time and then stop switching.
- mhurron 7mo ago<Insert Archer WOOOOO video> Seriously, woo!
- emptybits 7mo agoI'm in BC. The astro-nerd in me would have preferred to see permanent Standard Time instead of a permanent +1 offset. Instinctively, I think morning light is important to our biology for a daily reset and the solar cue of "high noon" is also a real thing. I'm sure I've read that sleep health experts have historically supported a change to permanent Standard Time, not DST. I respect there are economic arguments for permanent DST. But I question the road safety stat I hear with announcements like this. Kids walking, biking, and being driven to school in mornings in darkness ... that's also what permanent DST gives us. Oh well, I am in the minority it seems. So R.I.P. "high noon" ... I'll never see you again here. And, yes, I understand that depending on where one is within a time zone, a true "high noon" is only in theory. But it's a nice ideal. :-)
- matthewdgreen 7mo agoI'm a relatively early riser, but: if you steal an hour of my summer evening time, I think that would call for civil unrest.
- singpolyma3 7mo agoWhat time the clock says shouldn't affect this
- zetanor 7mo agoI've seen arguments about kids going to school in the darkness being thrown around a lot, but I've never understood why that (against fresh drivers) is always taken to be worse than kids coming home in the darkness (against exhausted drivers).
- bryanlarsen 7mo agoAverage school start/end times in BC are 8:30 AM and 3 PM. Standard time in Vancouver puts sunrise/sunset at 8AM/415PM at winter solstice for standard time. That's 30 minutes of daylight before school and 75 minutes after school. IOW, kids are more likely to be walking in the dark in the morning, even with standard time. Switching to daylight time will switch sunrise/sunset to 9AM/515PM, guaranteeing kids will be walking in the dark in the morning.
- andsoitis 7mo agoThey picked wrong. They should have picked Standard Time.
- wvenable 7mo agoAs someone else pointed everyone is already on DST for approximately 65% of the year. This just removes the remaining 35%. Picking standard time would have been a much bigger change. Ultimately, it's entirely arbitrary anyway. The only issue is that American states cannot pick DST without a federal law change.
- throw0101c 7mo ago> As someone else pointed everyone is already on DST for approximately 65% of the year. This just removes the remaining 35%. Picking standard time would have been a much bigger change. This 65% started during the Dubya presidency (source: I was there updating tzdata on systems), and previous to that it was a 50/50 split. So 65/35 or 50/50 is arbitrary.
- wvenable 7mo agoBut the reasoning for that was a preference for DST. Obviously all this is arbitrary including standard time.
- throw0101c 7mo ago> But the reasoning for that was a preference for DST. There was no reasoning for the Dubya alteration: the change was not debated anywhere, and (AIUI) no one was ever able to figure out how it actually got slipped into the legislation.
- wvenable 7mo agoThe DST extension was included in Section 110 of the 2005 Energy Policy Act, debated as part of the bill, and justified on energy-savings grounds. Congress even required the Department of Energy to study its impact afterwards!
- ndr42 7mo agoIn germany the terms are Sommerzeit (summer time) and Winterzeit (winter time). Of course everybody would chose the former as summer sound better than winter but the latter is "better" as it corresponds more to "wake up when there is light" which is favorable to health, performance etc.
- PhilippGille 7mo agoThat's a very dishonest take, as I'm sure you know that Sommerzeit proponents have reasons other than "summer sounds better than winter". For example most people just wake up and go to work in the morning, but in the evening they meet friends, BBQ, hike/run through nature, do sports etc., and prefer doing those activities while it's bright outside.
- vesinisa 7mo agoWhat stops you from going to work one hour early, so you get off earlier as well? Most employers these days allow flexible working hours. And if we are permanently moving our clocks to advance by an hour, why stop at just one hour? Why not have +2h or +3h so we get even more brighter evenings.
- ghaff 7mo agoBecause most people don’t have that degree of flexibility. When I was commuting I’d have been happy to have double DST or whatever you want to call it.
- PhilippGille 7mo agoWith flexible working hours it works in both directions, so @ndr42 can also wake up an hour later for his health and performance :)
- paxys 7mo ago"Most employers" definitely don't allow flexible working hours. You have to be in specific sectors – basically just "modern" tech companies – to have that privilege. And that is a very tiny slice of the working population.
- The_Fox 7mo ago"Pacific time" is going to be so confusing though. Should have just called it Yukon Standard Time, since that's already a thing, at least informally. Cause that would not be confusing at all...
- cpncrunch 7mo agoYes, it's going to cause a lot of confusion and missed meetings. At the moment everyone says "pacific time", but now that will mean two different things. I think we'll need to say Vancouver time or California time.
- tempestn 7mo agoMaybe people will finally learn the difference between PST and PDT.
- troad 7mo agoThey won't. In my professional experience, having needed to work with relatively unsophisticated people across many time zones, the only thing that worked consistently was "[City] time". That way people could always check 'what time is it in X now' or 'when it's X in [City], what time is it here', and get correct responses. Descriptors like "Mountain time" are too vague, especially when there are various places that do/do not practice DST within that timezone, or there are similarly named time zones internationally. (Australia has Eastern and Central time too, for example, and in summer - which is northern hemisphere winter - they split into four different time zones due to varying DST practices.) Trying to be overly clever and exactly specify the time zone, e.g. "MDT", leads to lots of subtle mistakes in my experience. Often people will think they know what that is, and then get it wrong. Or their calendar app will helpfully suggest MST and they'll click on it, not noticing the difference. Or they'll just scramble the letters when writing them down and wind up with "NTT time" or "AT&T time" or some such.
- madcaptenor 7mo agoMy theory on why people use "xST" is that the word "standard" time sounds like it is the fancy official time. When people say EST and mean EDT I'm tempted to just show up an hour late, if it's a meeting I don't want to go to.
- esoltys 7mo agoWhy now? From the Govt of BC press release: "The Interpretation Amendment Act, which is the legal framework that enables the Province to adopt permanent DST, became law in 2019. At the time, government chose not to bring it into force in order to co-ordinate timing with neighbouring U.S. states in the same time zone. Recent actions from the U.S. have shifted how B.C. approaches decisions that merit alignment, including on time zones. Making this change now reflects the current preferences and needs of British Columbians, and helps ensure the province is well-positioned to thrive, even when circumstances across the border evolve." https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2026AG0013-000209 https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2026AG0013-000209
- fc417fc802 7mo agoNotably Washington state legislated the same change to DST years ago (instead of standard time, the morons!) but the federal government never approved the switch. AFAIK it's still pending. I remain unclear what authority the federal government has over such a matter and why Washington (or any other) state has opted to respect it. What are they going to do if a state just ignores them and switches their clocks? Sometimes I get the impression that the spirit of states rights in the US has died.
- throw0101c 7mo agoIf US states want to get rid of time switches they are free to go to year-round Standard Time (like Arizona).
- fc417fc802 7mo agoYou're saying the federal government granted blanket authorization to switch to the one? So the only reason states wait on authorization is merely obtusely insisting on the wrong choice? (In addition to being impotent.) The more I learn about this issue the more things I find to be angry about.
- pwg 7mo ago
- goodmodule 7mo agoIt would be great to see Europe adopt it as well. Changing clocks twice a year feels outdated and more disruptive than beneficial.
- watwut 7mo agoAbsolutely not. The time that would stay is the bad one. With switch, we get reasonable half a years. Without it, it would be whole unreasonable year.
- recursive 7mo agoThe biggest unreasonability is switching at all. I admit other points of view, but switching back and forth is a compromise that seems far worse than just sticking with one. Either one.
- jerlam 7mo agoWe seem to be in the worst situation now where not only does the EU change their time twice a year, they change it on a different schedule than US/Canada. For a few weeks during the year, half of your meetings start at a different time. Everyone is confused.
- dzhiurgis 7mo agoNow add southern hemisphere
- asmosoinio 7mo agoWhy? Can't people adjust their schedules as needed? Schools don't have to always start at the same time? And many jobs also not? It's not like 9-17 work hours are set on stone?
- padjo 7mo agoAnd coordinating that change would be easier you think?
- ternus 7mo agoAlmost nowhere do you see the sun directly overhead at noon, even during Standard Time. The differences can be quite stark: https://24timezones.com/cms-static/images/uploads/solartimevsstandardtime.png https://24timezones.com/cms-static/images/uploads/solartimev... BC (and PST) is actually quite reasonable in this regard, with Vancouver and LA being fairly close to "on the money." Contrast that with China and Russia, where clock time can be 2h+ off from solar time. As a further note, this is one reason it's miserable to be in Boston/Maine during the winter if you're an SAD sufferer: sunset times of 4pm or sooner feel like "insult to injury."
- MoonWalk 7mo agoMaybe, but Standard time is still closer to "correct." "Daylight Savings" time never made sense. Why are we "saving daylight" when there's more of it?
- PieTime 7mo agoSave it in the evening, it was always dark in the morning. Historically we were saving daylight for the morning
- crazygringo 7mo ago> Why are we "saving daylight" when there's more of it? We're saving it from the morning in the summer, when there's way too much of it while we're asleep, to use it in the evening, when we want to enjoy the outdoors with our families and friends after dinner. The point is to increase the enjoyment of summer sunlight after the work day is over.
- bena 7mo agoNo, the point was to conserve fuel for the winter months. Which was why dst was a wwi directive that was abandoned after the war. We reimplemented it during wwii and just never changed back
- crazygringo 7mo ago
- MOSI2 7mo agoI fully support removing DST (as a parent at least, it's a PITA twice a year). However, clocks should show noon correctly, as best as they can within your chosen timezone. Also, I really like long evenings in the summer to get outdoors and go biking or hiking. It follows that we should abolish DST, stick to the correct time, and move regular school and business hours back one hour.
- bsimpson 7mo agoGood luck coordinating that.
- fc417fc802 7mo agoSchool and business hours are already fairly arbitrary where I live. The only places observing "standard" hours seem to be banks and even many of those stay open later in the evening these days. Meanwhile the schools do everything based on juggling a limited number of busses meaning that start and end times are staggered over a period of 3+ hours. You see evidence of this in traffic patterns as well. It starts early with the trades and runs well into the late morning due (AFAIK) to tech.
- mikkupikku 7mo agoReminder that a few hundred years ago when clocks were oddities we didn't have to deal with any of this madness because everybody used True Solar Time as a sundial would read it. What time do kids go to school? After the sun rises. Simple. Now that we have clocks it suddenly becomes difficult to schedule simple things like sending kids to school in sunlight.
- hatthew 7mo agoWhile true, I'm not sure what your point is? Centuries ago, everyone got up at sunrise to tend to the farm because the farm needed tending at sunrise. These days, organizations like schools and grocery stores need to coordinate with hundreds to thousands of people daily, and "angle of sun in the sky" is nowhere near precise enough. Let alone phone calls and instant messages that travel across many timezones.
- mikkupikku 7mo agoI'm merely saying that the mass adoption of clock time for planning daily routines was an industrialist conspiracy to get people working when by natural right they should be sleeping. We could easily have software presenting time to us as true solar time. We're not limited to gears and levers anymore, our "clocks" now have GPS and can trivially calculate solar time with that. Doing this one off is easy. The problem is society at large still trying to make plans like when to start work shifts or school hours based on a system of time that flies wildly out of synch with Earth's natural rhythms throughout the year. Massive self-own for humanity.
- dzhiurgis 7mo agoI think point is that now we have technology that is super adaptive to local longitude while changing timezone in all of worlds software is super difficult.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- walthamstow 7mo ago
- cf100clunk 7mo agoNot all of British Columbia can make the change. BC's northeast and much of the Columbia-Kootenays are presently on Mountain time, which means that the Province of Alberta holds the choice of when/whether their own and those BC areas go to a permanent time. Then AB would have to sync with Saskatchewan along their borders, but SK is already on a permanent time zone system. Decisions, decisions.
- glatisaint 7mo agoThe northeast is already on permanent PDT.
- cf100clunk 7mo agoOn further reading, the northeast of British Columbia is on permanent Mountain Standard Time, as seen here: https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zone/canada/chetwynd https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zone/canada/chetwynd Parts of the Columbia-Kootenays change between Mountain Standard and Mountain Daylight time: https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zone/canada/cranbrook https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zone/canada/cranbrook while the Town Of Creston is permanently on Mountain Standard Time.
- imagetic 7mo agoI am so jealous. I hope the entire West Coast can follow this example.
- darknavi 7mo agoIndeed. Very much hoping WA hops on board. I know we stalled after 2019 but I wish we'd just hop on board.
- lotsofpulp 7mo agoWA didn't stall, it's not within WA's jurisdiction (unless it wants to go against the federal government). Also WA isn't going to do it, and shouldn't do it, unless California does.
- bena 7mo agoSo they chose the wrong way. Nice.
- water-data-dude 7mo agoEveryone else is throwing in there 2¢, so here's my pet proposal. Here's the undeniable fact: everyone (ok, almost everyone, but it's a rounding error) hates the switchover in spring, when you have to get up an hour earlier. Conversely, everyone (or a rough approximation) likes the switchover in the fall, when we get to sleep in an extra hour. So why don't we just get rid of the switchover in the spring and get rid of the one in the fall?
- meatmanek 7mo agoI hate both. The time jump in fall means sunset starts happening depressingly early (almost exactly 5pm where I am, which means no sunlight after work).
- karlosvomacka 7mo agothat's a load of horseshit. everyone around me want's the daylight savings time, to have more light after work. nobody cares about mornings. > when you have to get up an hour earlier no you don't. it's weekend.
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- ex-aws-dude 7mo agoI vote we sleep in an extra hour for BOTH time changes Now that's a win-win
- kshacker 7mo agoSo maybe make the day a bit shorter, same 24 hours same 60 minutes, just shorter by a few seconds, so that we can add an extra hour every quarter.
- __turbobrew__ 7mo agoWork/school days should just be shorter in the winter. We can easily leave work/school an hour earlier in the winter and nothing bad would happen.
- OhNoNotAgain_99 7mo ago[dead]
- bluebarbet 7mo agoThis question IMO reveals how the abstraction of numbers can imprison our minds. It literally makes no sense to say, "I prefer to have an extra hour in the evening" (the morning and evening will always have equal numbers of hours). Or "I hate it when it's dark at 5pm" (translation: "I hate when it's dark at 5 arbitrary periods after an arbitrary moment that may be hours either side of solar noon"). My solution: pick the time peg closest to the "correct" one (i.e. standard time) and stick to it. People who want year-round "summer" evenings can continue to have them by the simple expedient of doing what DST forces them (and everyone else) to do already: get up earlier.
- frotaur 7mo agoIn a world where there isn't work schedule and in general the whole of society's schedule which works around the arbitrary time, I agree with you.
- bluebarbet 7mo agoSure. But this argument is surely less powerful than it was back in the era of church bells and big clocks on factory walls and so on. We now have electronics that add a whole new layer of abstraction to our schedules, to the point that you can now miss a DST change if you're not paying attention. For many people (I'm one) this change is now just a useless irritation.
- lamontcg 7mo agoSo adjust the work schedule. If people want more time in the evening, get up earlier and go to work and go home earlier. You can even shift school/work schedules throughout the year.
- 1718627440 7mo agoThe work schedule is adjusting all the time, and it moves in the opposite direction.
- dagss 7mo ago
- NooneAtAll3 7mo agowhat does "daylight time" mean? is it summer time or winter time?
- deathanatos 7mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time Probably, "summer time"; it means the +n hour change in offset (usually +1h) that some timezones jump into in the spring, and remove in the fall. This zone is making DST "permanent" (subject to future legislation).
- sharkjacobs 7mo agoI'll genuinely miss it getting dark at 4PM. Winter won't be the same.
- tsoukase 7mo agoA few years ago I was against changing the time but now I tend to even suggest a full two hour change! In the developed northern hemisphere the summer/winter daylight difference is huge (about 2 hours in the morning and 2 in the night) with a short time of equal length. Maximizing sunlight exposure while the people are outside is vital, mainly for psychological purposes. That means let the light begin at about 7-8 all year long and let summer afternoon extend as much as possible. No kid leaves home before 8 and the 6-in-the-morning drivers will pay attention all year long and not only during the winter. But all types of people will enjoy the long summer afternoons.
- CagedJean 7mo ago[dead]
- hshdhdhj4444 7mo agoUltimately the arguments between whether one should pick daylight or standard times are a red herring. The benefits of one over the other usually balance out and in either case are insignificant compared to the problems caused by changing time zones twice a year. Changing time zones is directly linked with all sorts of health issues, deaths, car crashes, etc.
- jrnfjivdn 7mo ago[dead]
- francislavoie 7mo agoChanging timezones suck, but sunset happening at 4:30pm before I leave work to go home massively contributes to winter depression. It's like "well that was a tiring day" and then instantly served with _darkness_. It sucks. If you get at least SOME light on the way home, it's a bit of a bright spot in the day, especially if the sunset is particularly pretty that day, as it often happens to be in Canadian winters. So I am extremely happy to see they chose the correct option for mental health of Canadians in the winter, and I really hope the rest of the provinces follow suit.
- ethersteeds 7mo agoI went looking for a visualization tool to help get a sense of what this change means experientially. Found this: https://savestandardtime.com/chart/?city=6173331&clock=pdst https://savestandardtime.com/chart/?city=6173331&clock=pdst
- kwar13 7mo agoFInally!
- cameldrv 7mo agoEspecially living that far north, they're going to find out next winter why we do the whole DST thing. It seems to be something like the Measles vaccine where you just have to have a big outbreak every once in a while so that the cultural memory is refreshed.
- anal_reactor 7mo agoMost people agree that changing the clock twice a year is silly, for obvious reasons. Still, there's a small minority that thinks that the existing system is good, for obvious reasons. Among those who want to abolish time zone change, there's roughly 50/50 split between those who prefer permanent summer time for obvious reasons, and those who prefer permanent winter time for obvious reasons. There are a few more exotic ideas floating around - many of which are obviously better than any of mainstream ones, but they unfortunately have a low chance of being adopted. The end result is probably going to be more and more fracture on local level, as smal units of administration adopt their favorite solutions. This is obviously bad for doing business between units of administration, and obviously good for circadian rhythms of the people living within given unit. One thing obviously has more importance than the other.
- userbinator 7mo agoIt's worth noting that in China, where the whole country is on a single timezone (which is roughly solar time in the eastern part, but far from it in the western part), places in the west simply have a different notion of time.
- Lammy 7mo ago> China, where the whole country is on a single timezone Relevant Negativland? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDmWYVdN8ug https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDmWYVdN8ug
- VladVladikoff 7mo agoHow exactly do I fix the backend after this? Will a newer version of php or nodeJS have the correct handling of these timezone changes? I’ve been wondering about this for a while but can’t find an answer when googling.
- physicles 7mo agoNot sure why you're getting downvoted. When I read the headline, my first thought was "how are they going to update the tz database on all Linuxes in the world in time?" I expect some confusion on November 1. Here's the thread on IANA time zone mailing list where this is being discussed: https://lists.iana.org/hyperkitty/list/tz@iana.org/thread/667WE5QTIA7MP2E7NC7T3SO7VLMZLVZS/ https://lists.iana.org/hyperkitty/list/tz@iana.org/thread/66... BC should've timed this better. They just released 2026a. In the future, you can check if your database has been updated with this: (it should show no transition in November): zdump -v America/Vancouver | grep 2026
- ireflect 7mo agoThe new rules will be incorporated into tzdata, which is used for various operating systems, software libraries, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tz_database https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tz_database
- Groxx 7mo agoThis will never not feel insane to me, it's just because no one wants to say "move classes and work an hour later on [x date]". Somehow changing noon away from noon is a better answer.
- bethekidyouwant 7mo agoDST is move everything an hour earlier. Work starts at 8am instead of 9.
- physicles 7mo agoHere's the IANA time zone mailing list thread where this is being discussed: https://lists.iana.org/hyperkitty/list/tz@iana.org/thread/667WE5QTIA7MP2E7NC7T3SO7VLMZLVZS/ https://lists.iana.org/hyperkitty/list/tz@iana.org/thread/66... Bad timing on BC's part. They just tagged release 2026a today.
- nneonneo 7mo agoEh, they're still keeping the impending switch to PDT, just ditching the future switch back to PST (and all future changes). That should give around 7-8 months for a new timezone file update to percolate.
- physicles 7mo agoSure It’ll make it to all the distros, but how many sysadmins won’t patch in time?
- hbjkhgkytfkytv 7mo agoThis is the best possible choice. I hope everywhere follows suit.
- jrnfjivdn 7mo ago[dead]
- EchoReflection 7mo agotangentially related, Dr. Andrew Huberman shared a video in which he asserts that exposing one's eyes to sunlight very soon after waking is "good for your brain" (essentially): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2aWYjSA1Jc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2aWYjSA1Jc https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMi1jb3B5_f52a6bb5-dc0d-4a3a-865b-5154b0a11ed9 https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMi1jb3B5_f52a6bb5-dc0d-4a3a-8... Multiple peer-reviewed studies and analyses indicate an increase in traffic accidents—particularly fatal ones—following the spring transition to DST. This is often attributed to acute sleep deprivation (losing one hour of sleep), circadian rhythm disruption, and altered light conditions during peak commuting hours, which can impair alertness, reaction times, and visibility. Key findings include: A large-scale U.S. study analyzing over 732,000 fatal motor vehicle accidents from 1996 to 2017 (published in Current Biology, 2020) reported a consistent 6% increase in fatal crash risk during the workweek immediately following the spring DST transition, equating to approximately 28 additional deaths annually in the U.S. The effect was more pronounced in western regions of time zones and persisted into afternoon hours despite longer evening daylight. Other research has documented short-term spikes, such as increases of 16% on the first day and 12% on the second day after the spring change in some analyses, or broader elevations in fatal crashes linked to the "DST effect." Systematic reviews and meta-analyses confirm short-term elevations in collision risk post-spring transition in many (though not all) contexts, with some evidence of higher fatal accident rates in the U.S. specifically. The fall transition back to Standard Time shows more mixed or opposite patterns: some studies report small increases in certain crash types (e.g., due to darker evening commutes increasing pedestrian or deer-vehicle collisions), while others note decreases in vehicle-occupant fatalities or no net increase overall. A 2017 systematic review of road traffic collision risk found inconsistent short-term effects across studies (some showing increases, decreases, or no change), but long-term analyses often suggested a net safety benefit from DST periods due to evening light. Recent Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) research (covering 2010–2019 U.S. data) indicated that spring DST increases fatal motor-vehicle occupant crashes (+12% in the following five weeks) but decreases fatal pedestrian/bicyclist crashes (−24%), resulting in a near-neutral net effect on total fatal crashes (slight increase in occupant deaths offset by fewer pedestrian/cyclist deaths). In summary, your memory is correct in that empirical data—particularly from U.S.-based studies—support an increase in traffic accident frequency (especially fatal crashes) associated with Daylight Saving Time variations, most reliably in the immediate aftermath of the spring transition due to sleep loss and misalignment. However, effects are not uniform across all studies, regions, or crash types, and some research highlights trade-offs (e.g., benefits to pedestrians from evening light). Debates continue regarding permanent DST, permanent Standard Time, or abolition of changes altogether, with organizations like the American Academy of Sleep Medicine favoring permanent Standard Time to minimize disruptions.
- shmerl 7mo agoIn US this effort is still dragging its feet.
- kshacker 7mo agomaybe this prods either the congress to allow permanent daylight savings or the western states to just move to standard time. but no, they will drag their feet. what we need is some kind of critical mass which finally makes them act. Maybe a few more canadian provinces although it appears ontario is harder since they made a pact with Quebec and New York. But we need some more, maybe one major US state to break free and go to standard time.
- tripdout 7mo agoWhat is daylight time - daylight savings? If so, I'm all for this. Dark in the mornings, more sun in the evenings, win-win.
- deleted 7mo ago
- protocolture 7mo agoBuying stocks in curtain manufacturers and cow sunscreen retailers.
- LeoPanthera 7mo agoThe tzdata database is a modern miracle.
- globular-toast 7mo agoLame. I'm convinced that people think DST actually creates more daylight. If people want more daylight, leave work earlier. Work less. Most of your jobs don't matter anyway. For people who have jobs that do matter, like teachers, nurses etc. the choice between 0 or +1 hardly makes a difference. Should have just gone with 0.
- arcadianalpaca 7mo agoThe European Parliament voted to end clock changes in 2019 [1] but it got stuck and nothing happened. Meanwhile, BC just goes ahead and does it. I suppose one can still dream... :) [1] https://www.timeanddate.com/news/time/end-clock-changes-europe.html https://www.timeanddate.com/news/time/end-clock-changes-euro...
- qalmakka 7mo agoUnfortunately two very big things happened afterwards: 1. Covid, which caused a dramatic shift in the EU focus and required the Commission to permanently take on lots of extra responsibilities (debt, shared procurement of medical goods and vaccines, way more international recognition/influence, etc) 2. Brexit: Ireland has to follow whatever Northern Ireland does. Northern Ireland's Unionists will never tolerate being in a different timezone than London, and Farage and his cronies in the UK will never tolerate having to swallow down an EU directive for ideological reasons. BoJo was already saying back in '19 that the UK was going to keep daylight savings only to spite the EU. This means that Ireland will almost 100% veto any changes to DST unless London is on board with them. There's also an underlying internal divergence about what abolishing DST should look like. While nobody in Europe likes daylight savings (the material act of switching), Southern and Northern Europe have a very different opinion about which timezone to keep. Right now basically 70% of the EU is in CET/CEST, so trade and business are frictionless - from the tip of Sweden down to Malta, from Galicia to the Suwalki Gap - all year round. The issue now is that Northern Europeans generally don't give a fuck about more daylight in the summer - they already have a humongous amount of daylight during the night. What they'd like to do is to keep "natural" time all year around, because summer time would cause the sun to rise extremely late in winter. They'd like CET to become the new central European standard. On the contrary, in Southern Europe people don't really care that much about sun rising at 7 or 8 in winter but really love the extra hour of sun on summer evenings. This means keeping CEST all year round. Given that having a timezone between Southern Germany and Austria/Northern Italy or between the Rhineland and France is objectively terrible for the EU economy, nobody is going to propose this ever again unfortunately. I think we're stuck with DST forever unless someone caves - most likely the Nordics. Having basically all of Europe on a single timezone is just too convenient, that's why nobody went back to their previous timezones after Hitler and Franco fucked them up in the '40s and why China is still on Beijing time
- lxgr 7mo agoPermanent standard time would have made more sense to me, but I get it – humans can't possibly influence fundamental natural forces such as school starting times, TV schedules, museum opening hours etc.
- novia 7mo agoCompromise solution: In the spring, just lose the hour during the workday at 3pm instead of in the middle of the night. Designate that missing hour a holiday so employees still have to get paid for it. All the complaints about switching back and forth would go away.
- bsza 7mo agoCompromise between what? Disrupting people's sleep schedules and not disrupting people's sleep schedules?
- novia 7mo agocompromise between observing the daylight saving time switch and not observing it. There are benefits to switching twice a year (sunlight in the morning during the winter when you're supposed to be getting up for work, or when kids are getting on the school bus) (sunlight later into the evening during the summer so you can go play soccer after work if you want to) and you lose things if you decide to stick with just one
- wink 7mo agoIgnoring the fact itself, doing this in a single province and not the whole country is the really wild thing for me (as a European). I have opinions about DST but having it different per German state sounds much more horrible than anything we have now, no matter how complicated the rules are.
- blululu 7mo agoLess of a problem in a county that is more or less laid out East to West with massive 500 mile wide provinces. British Columbia deciding to adopt Mountain Standard Time is more or less equivalent to Portugal using Berlin time.
- wink 7mo agoI'm thinking more 'companies in the same country working together' - physical distance does not really matter, imho. Many countries span 1000km and unless traveling in person you don't care if it's east-west or north-south. Coordinating meetings and opening times is different.
- 9rx 7mo agoCanadian provinces are structurally more like countries within the EU than states within Germany. The EU operates with more than one timezone.
- wink 7mo agoYes, but my experience tells me that you'll interact (on a level where timezones matter) much more with people in your country than in others - and this has nothing to do with small states vs big provinces, I don't know enough about Canada if every big company has offices in Vancouver an Toronto (or Ottawa, Montreal) that work closely together.
- dubcanada 7mo agoSadly that is not really true in Canada. Most companies in Canada only really work with a small group of close provinces. BC/Alberta Sackatchewan/Manitoba Ontario/Quebec Quebec/New Brunswick Nova Scotia/PEI/NFLD/New Brunswick etc The big companies have offices in each, but they'll usually break them down even further into eastern, central, western regions. And they'll largely never talk to eachother.
- zjaffee 7mo agoIf there's a single section of the entire world where daylight savings makes the most, it's above and below the 45th parallel. This means the earliest sunrise is 9am in the winter what a horrible idea just to give people a little bit more sunlight when they'd still be out at work anyways.
- timonoko 7mo agoI suggest installing Sun Dial on youres smartwatch. Especially when daytime is 4 hours, it somewhat aleviates the "eternal darkness" brain fuzz. I try to be awake on those few hours, and do not care about those other dials. There is Sun Dial right there on Zepp Watchmaker on "editable components". From 9 to 15 seems to best amplitude as it reflects the sun's movement on the skies.
- swiftcoder 7mo agoAbout fucking time! The EU has been edging us all since 2019 on ending daylight savings, and it seems to have stalled yet again...
- kazinator 7mo ago> Residents will have eight months to prepare for Nov. 1, 2026, when the clocks would have been turned back one hour, but will now remain the same. That's an odd read. Residents have eight months to prepare for an event already known to be nonexistent: a non-happening.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- zoogeny 7mo agoI think this means preparing for BC to go out of sync with the US states we normally sync to (Washington, Oregon, California). However, there is some hope I've heard expressed that this may push one or more of those states to make the switch as well. Unlikely, but hey, a lot can happen in eight months (as this year is already proving).
- dragonwriter 7mo agoUS states cannot, under current federal law, go permanent daylight time (they can go permanent standard time, though), and they can't unilaterally make the latter have the same effect as the former by simultaneously switching time zones because they can't switch timezones without approval of the federal Department of Transportation. I don't see the current federal government making special accommodation for California, Oregon, or Washington on, well, anything in the next eight months, so...
- zoogeny 7mo agoI actually agree on how unlikely it is but the wildcard is Trump. I mean, he is the kind of guy who just goes with his gut and he has already publicly supported getting rid of the time change, calling it a "50-50 issue" (on which to go with, standard or savings). The worse case is he pushes a federal change to standard time, in which case I suspect BC would have to go along.
- kazinator 7mo agoFellow Vancouverites: what ... fall back ... strategy are you planning on executing, as an alternative? :)
- noduerme 7mo agoAhhhhh I've been waiting for Oregon to do this for years. The idea that driving north in winter would make the sun set an hour later is maddening.
- Ekaros 7mo agoI think regular time is always the correct option. If you want to move work start time. Regulate that. Schools, government institutions and public transport can all be directed. The rest will likely follow on recommendation. See for period of time and allow those that want to re-adjust again for their needs.
- incomingpain 7mo agoFinally a win for BC, they really really needed it.
- bloak 7mo agoThese discussions are always very annoying. People tend to state their preferences without mentioning their latitude, their longitude, or their current time zone. Anyway, here are my preferences: GB should switch to UTC+0 all year. UTC+1 all year was tried (1968-1971) and was very unpopular in Scotland. School hours are roughly 09:00 till 15:00 and they only get about 6 hours of sunlight in winter up north so local noon has to be at around 12:00. Also, for political reasons relating to Northern Ireland, it is very helpful for GB and Ireland to have the same time. So UTC+0 it is. Seasonal changes in school hours is a theoretical possibility, but parents of schoolchildren have a hard enough time as it is and lots of other things are linked to school hours. It would be much easier for everyone else to make seasonal changes to their timetables, like just get up an hour earlier if you want to. Nobody's stopping you.
- Pirate-of-SV 7mo agoWhat is your latitude, longitude, current time zone?
- bloak 7mo agoFair question, I suppose. I'm in England. It's a small country so that's sufficient precision!
- prh8 7mo agoFwiw I thought it was pretty self evident in your OP, and additionally that England is small enough to be a sufficient answer
- steezeburger 7mo agoI couldn't believe it wasn't mentioned after that intro haha
- stetrain 7mo ago> GB should switch to UTC+0 all year. UTC+1 all year was tried (1968-1971) and was very unpopular in Scotland. School hours are roughly 09:00 till 15:00 and they only get about 6 hours of sunlight in winter up north so local noon has to be at around 12:00. Couldn't you adjust the school schedule by an hour to achieve the same effect?
- jdr23bc 7mo agoChances are it will get repealed because it isn't standard time. Examples of failed permanent daylight switches: - USA 70s - Russia 2010s - UK 70s The only examples of failed switches to permanent standard time are Egypt and Jordan. There are 12 prominent examples with permanent standard time, including most of Mexico, Argentina, Russia, and parts of Australia. Only the Yukon, Turkey, Jordan, Morocco, and Syria are on permanent daylight time. DST is popular because people associate it with summer, so it is chosen as the permanent time. Then the population experiences reality of no sunshine when they get up in the winter and hate it.
- orloffm 7mo agoIt didn't fail in Russia, it's permanent day time there and no one complains at all. The only problem is +1 hour difference with Europe during Winter.
- robinson7d 7mo agoIt’s not just because it’s associated with summer, quite the opposite: many of us just feel that sunset 30 minutes after work in the winter will be less depressing than the sun setting while we’re in the office. And then even more so during the days where it moves from 5:30 to 6:30, that’s enough to actually get out and do an activity. I get that there are good reasons for morning light too, I’m just saying that I don’t think it’s just an association with summer.
- winddude 7mo agoAnd we're stoked!
- stronglikedan 7mo agolucky mfers
- bethekidyouwant 7mo agoInstead of starting work at 8 AM we just moved the sun?
- bgnn 7mo agoGood to see this is getting more common! Changing the time every year cause a lot of accidents involving wildlife. Wild animals learn human activity patterns and avoid the roads during our active hours. When we shift the time we start they get caught off guard and a lot of accidents happen. It takes roughly 2 weeks of adjustment apparently.