COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Clocks are turning back an hour this week for the end of daylight saving time.
Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. on Nov. 3, closing the annual period when U.S. clocks “spring forward” an hour in March and “fall back” in November. Yes, this means we get an extra hour of sleep on Sunday when the clock remains in the secondhand position for another hour.
Ohio is among more than a dozen states that have pushed to observe daylight saving permanently. The state’s House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill to urge the U.S. Congress to pass the “Sunshine Protection Act,” a bill to transition to perpetual daylight saving nationwide.
The measure is now under consideration in Ohio’s Senate, where it received a hearing in the General Government Committee in June. Reps. Rodney Creech (R-West Alexandria) and Bob Peterson (R-Sabina), the bill’s primary sponsors, argued the U.S. no longer needs the biannual tradition of changing clocks, pointing to studies that say moving clocks in the spring and fall causes a number of work, school, safety and sleep-related issues.
“Continuing to change the time results in a higher number of cardiac issues and strokes and prolonged seasonal depression,” Creech said. “A recent study revealed that sleep loss, even for as little as one hour, can decrease a child’s quality of life, showing significant negative impacts on the children’s physical well-being as well as their ability to cope with the school environment.”
One study said adult workers on average sleep 40 minutes less, have 5.7% more workplace injuries, and lose 67.6% more work days because of injuries the day following the spring shift than on other days. Another, after researching 21 years of fatal accidents in the U.S., found a significant increase in accidents on the Monday following the spring forward and another increase on the Sunday after the fall back.
However, Jay Pea, president of the nonprofit Save Standard Time, said in a previous hearing last year that daylight saving would delay Ohio’s sunrise past 8 a.m. for more than four months, sometimes as late as 9:06 a.m., and noted Ohio rejected an effort in 1974 to enact daylight saving permanently. Rather, Pea advocates for extending standard time to the entire year.
“Permanent standard time would protect start times for schoolchildren and essential workers by letting most sleep naturally past dawn year-round. Its benefits to circadian health would improve immunity, longevity, mood, alertness, and performance in school, sports, and work,” Pea said. “Standard time is the natural clock, set to the sun.”
Creech and Peterson’s resolution notes an effort to enact daylight saving in Ohio would be curtailed until federal law changes. Under the Uniform Time Act of 1966, states can change to standard time but not daylight saving, which requires a change to federal law to transition to perpetual daylight saving.
Passing the Sunshine Protection Act would mean later sunsets in the winter, but also later sunrises. For example, the sun rises around 7:15 a.m. and sets around 4:30 p.m. on the first day of winter in New York. The Sunshine Protection Act would change sunrise to 8:15 a.m. and sunset to 5:30 p.m.
