Sure, we Americans have a few distinctive flaws like any other country. A big one is the fact that we now spend only five months each year observing the correct time of day, and the other seven in denial.
The idea behind Daylight Saving was to give the farmers extra time to work. Today the American farmer, depending on who tells the story, is a rarity and not as likely to actually be spending copious hours harvesting because subsidies keep half the farmers paid and the other half are going bankrupt anyway and will lose their farms.
We have gadgets like VCRs and televisions that could be programmed to observe the time change, but they stopped working when President Bush changed the rules on Daylight Saving to end in November and start again in March.
People have a lot of timepieces to reset twice a year. I personally enjoy having a collection of watches (nothing fancy: just lots of different discounted Timexes), so I always have to reset them. I actually took the time to count all the time dependent things I had to reset last week: sixteen, including the car clocks (had to break out the owner’s manual for that one).
Now that it’s dark during the morning and evening rush hours, it’s easier to handle traffic in my opinion. Brake lights in the dark are easy to see. I don’t particularly like it when people amp up their headlights with halogens or those new blue gizmos, though.
I wonder what it would be like if our next man in the White House actually abolished Daylight Saving. Could we try it for one year and see how it goes?
Susan's Scribblings the Blog 