How do you save daylight?

In case you haven’t heard, Daylight Saving Time (DST) will be here this weekend. This year, because of a bill signed by President George W. Bush, it starts two weeks early and ends one week later. All in all, a three week gift of extra daylight for those of us who work from 8 to 5.

Starting this year and continuing on until changed again, our clocks will move ahead on the second Sunday in March. DST will continue until the first Sunday in November.

The rationale is, and always has been, the saving of energy.

There are many other reasons to shift our clocks to allow for more light at the end of a day. They vary from the popular energy savings to the allowance of more light for trick-or-treaters and voters as the winter nights approach.

Many fire departments throughout the U.S. also encourage you to replace your household fire alarm batteries with each time change. It’s a good idea since these gadgets are generally out of sight and therefore out of mind.

However, here’s one I’ll bet you didn’t know. The national agency responsible for the administration of DST and all time zone law is the U.S. Department of Transportation. How did that happen?

After a little research I discovered that in the late 1800s time zones were actually first developed by the railroads. It helped to standardize their schedules.

Up until then major cities and regions actually set their clocks according to local astronomical conditions.

With the railroads leading the way, a Canadian, Sir Sandford Fleming, went to the 1884 International Prime Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C. to propose a system of international standard time. His system was adopted and is still in use today.

In 1918, the U.S. Congress made the U.S. rail time zones official under federal law and gave the responsibility to make any changes to the Interstate Commerce Commission, the only federal transportation regulatory agency at the time. In 1966, with the creation of the Department of Transportation, the responsibility for time zones and any changes was transferred to the new department.

Interestingly enough, “The Uniform Time Act of 1966” does not require that anyone observe Daylight Saving Time! All the law says is that if an area is going to observe Daylight Saving Time, it must be done uniformly.

The concern to save time has been around since 1784 when Benjamin Franklin introduced the idea in an essay while he was the U.S. minister to France.

The idea has had many proponents and detractors over the years. Farming communities dislike the changing hours, city-dwellers find a particular joy in gaining that extra hour of light in the evening.

Today, approximately 70 countries participate in Daylight Saving Time. Equatorial and tropical countries generally do not observe DST since their daylight hours are similar during every season. On the North American continent there are a few areas that do not observe DST, such as the state of Arizona and the province of Saskatchewan, Canada.

Personally, I enthusiastically welcome the additional light at the end of workday. I don’t know if it can be called “saving the light,” but I definitely get as much use out of those extra rays every single day that I can.

With all of the above said...don’t forget to set your clocks ahead this Saturday night!