The Alabama Senate recently passed a bill calling for permanent daylight saving time in the United States.
The daylight saving time in the United States starts every year on the second Sunday in March, when clocks are set forward by one hour. The clocks are turned back to standard time on the first Sunday in November.
The bill, proposed by Sen. Rusty Glover of Semmes, states that “much of the scientific research and public sentiment now favor remaining in daylight saving time year-round.”
The bill praises daylight saving time for being beneficial to health, commerce and recreation but also mentions results from research that conclude that the switching of clocks twice a year is a cause of deadly heart attacks and traffic accidents.
“Staying in the daylight saving time is the most logical thing to do,” said Karsan Tindol, a junior English major from Billingsley. “While there is a lot of benefit to having daylight saving time, there is no reason to change the clock back every year.”
While states can decide to opt out of daylight saving time, congressional approval is required to permanently keep daylight saving time.
According to Aaron Hagler, an assistant professor of history, daylight saving time began in Germany to increase production of war materiel during the First World War and was later adopted by the U.S.
The U.S. quickly repealed it after the war and again re-instituted it during the Second World War. Since then, the procedures for switching clocks have been altered numerous time, resulting in two states, Arizona and Hawaii, not observing daylight saving at all.
“Personally, I would love for the whole country to just pick one (daylight saving or standard time) and stick with it,” said Hagler.
“As much as I hate the spring forward, I love the fall back — at least, I did, until having kids made the ‘fall back’ meaningless and the ‘spring forward’ 50 times worse.”
According to Kyle Cooper, an ESL instructor who has spent time teaching English in Thailand, Japan and Taiwan (countries that do not observe the daylight saving time), not observing daylight saving does not significantly impact productivity.
“While I enjoy the extra hours of sunlight after work,” he said, “we can do it by changing work hours rather than altering clocks.”
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