Now that Daylight Saving Time has come and gone, we need to have a serious talk about why we should never go through that again. Not only does it suck to lose an hour of sleep because some old dead people thought it’d save energy, but it’s actually harmful to your body.
In the good old USA Daylight Saving Time was first introduced in 1918 by way of the Standard Time Act of 1918. This act was intended to save energy for seven months of the year during WWI. In spite of this, there’s actually little evidence that DST even saves us money. In fact, a recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research concluded that residential electricity demands in the great state of Indiana increased by one percent due to DST. This one percent increase cost the state over $9,000,000 and the report also said that this price could be even higher in other states. DST sure seems like a great way to lose money instead of saving it.
Not only does DST fail in its one purpose of saving money and electricity, but also it negatively affects our driving. A study conducted by the University of Colorado found that DST caused a 17 percent increase in fatal traffic accidents the Monday after springing forward. Pedestrians are harder to see in the mornings thanks to DST, causing them to more likely be hit by sleep deprived drivers, also courtesy of DST.
DST can’t be entirely bad though, can it? While it is nice to have the extra sunshine in the summer evenings, it’s not so nice to have a 25 percent increase of cardiac arrests on the Monday after DST. This chance is even further increased if you are already predisposed to heart diseases. Dr. Amneet Sandhu, a cardiologist from the University of Colorado, found this information after examining around 42000 Michigan hospital admissions.
I know a lot of people are scared of change, but stopping DST is a change that we need to make. Instead of saving us money, it actually costs us money, and it also leads to a lot of deaths from traffic accidents and increased heart attack risks. Hawaii and some parts of Arizona along with many US territories already departed with DST, and I’d like to see Nebraska be the next to join that list.