If you’re extra cranky today, boy do I have just the excuse for you. Overnight, daylight saving time kicked in, giving us an extra hour of sunlight in the afternoon and stealing an hour of sleep.
When author and DST expert David Prerau opened our call with, “It goes way back to Benjamin Franklin,” I knew I was in for a doozy of a subject. Being from Hawaii — which ticks on permanent standard time, along with Arizona — I knew I was entering a whole different ballgame of controversies when I moved to California, but I didn’t know daylight savings would be one of them.
Prerau went on to explain DST’s winding history but highlighted a very straightforward present.
“There’s only, right now, three choices: year-round daylight saving time, year-round standard time, and what we have,” the author of “Saving the Daylight” said. “The current system we have is the best of both.”
As we have it now, DST starts on the second Sunday of March and lasts eight months — which Prerau claimed is an ideal duration — until Nov. 1 this year, when the clock will turn back one hour.
While cheers may be heard from many around 48 U.S. states when the sun sets one hour later today, people weren’t too happy when the U.S. adopted year-round daylight saving time in the early 1970s. The law was in response to an energy crisis and was meant to last two years, but Congress repealed it before the two years were up.
History somewhat repeated itself in 2021 with the Sunshine Protection Act (S-623) to make daylight saving time permanent. The Senate passed the bill unanimously, which, Prerau quipped, “means that nobody even read it.” Because how else would the Senate completely agree on anything? The House of Representatives made sure American order was restored by letting the bill stall.
California state Sen. Roger Niello (R-Fair Oaks) introduced a bill in 2024 proposing the state shift to permanent standard time, claiming that “changing between standard time and daylight saving time is disruptive to health, safety, and education.” The bill died in February, but he has since introduced another, SB 1197, with the same goal.
The National Sleep Foundation aligns with Niello.
“California already has a track record at looking at ways they can prioritize sleep health,” said John Lopos, the foundation’s chief executive. “This kind of a change, to eliminate clock change and adopt permanent standard time, I believe, would be consistent with things California already has done that says, ‘We think sleep health is important.’”
Daylight saving was established by Germany in 1916 during World War I as an energy-saving measure, and the U.S. followed suit two years later.
The clock change does not add or erase an hour of sunlight — it’s simply an issue of whether the extra hour of sun will be in the morning or evening. For early risers and those who may like to squeeze in exercise before work, standard time could serve them better, whereas after-work busies benefit from extra light in the evening. Like DST, people’s feelings about the clock change are often seasonal.
“If you ask people in the winter, they generally say they like standard time,” said Jay Pea, president of Save Standard Time. “You ask people in the summer, they say they want to keep daylight savings.”
Jamie M. Zeitzer, co-director of the Center for Sleep and Circadian Sciences at Stanford University, highlighted two results of the time change that can cause a rise in accidents and cardiovascular issues in the spring: sleep loss and rising an hour earlier than your body expects. Advocates for standard time often highlight those risks. But, Zeitzer explained, “It’s a risk that we put ourselves at all the time,” such as when you fly to a different time zone.
Visible in the legislation pingpong: Not everyone can agree on which system is superior.
“No matter what time policy you do, there’s going to be a large number of people who feel disenfranchised by it, who feel like they are being harmed by it,” Zeitzer said.
Other places such as British Columbia have adopted permanent daylight saving time, and while Sen. Niello’s bill keeps the other side of the debate awake in California, our current time system ensures everyone gets their way for some months out of each year.
And remember, most Californians are running on an hour less sleep today, so drive a little slower and blame your crankiness on the time change.
A motorcyclist passes burned buses at the bus terminal in Etzatlán, Mexico, on Feb. 24, two days after teenagers acting on behalf of the local cartel set fire to buildings and vehicles in the town.
(Felix Marquez / For The Times)
(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Tayo Kuku Jr.)
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