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British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

cbc.ca

91–100 of 583 posts

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#91

They picked wrong. They should have picked Standard Time.

As someone else pointed everyone is already on DST for approximately 65% of the year. This just removes the remaining 35%. Picking standard time would have been a much bigger change. Ultimately, it's entirely arbitrary anyway. The only issue is that American states cannot pick DST without a federal law change.

> As someone else pointed everyone is already on DST for approximately 65% of the year. This just removes the remaining 35%. Picking standard time would have been a much bigger change.

This 65% started during the Dubya presidency (source: I was there updating tzdata on systems), and previous to that it was a 50/50 split.

So 65/35 or 50/50 is arbitrary.

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#92
Everyone else is throwing in there 2¢, so here's my pet proposal.

Here's the undeniable fact: everyone (ok, almost everyone, but it's a rounding error) hates the switchover in spring, when you have to get up an hour earlier. Conversely, everyone (or a rough approximation) likes the switchover in the fall, when we get to sleep in an extra hour. So why don't we just get rid of the switchover in the spring and get rid of the one in the fall?

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#93
post #73
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen arguments about kids going to school in the darkness being thrown around a lot, but I've never understood why that (against fresh drivers) is always taken to be worse than kids coming home in the darkness (against exhausted drivers).

I agree with you. I also need to shout at the clouds on this because the experts who make the argument for time changes drive me crazy. I live in Calgary. At a previous grade school my daughter went to, school started early enough that she left in pitch black conditions in winter, regardless of "experts" and their precious daylight savings time. 'You need sunshine when you wake up' is really a ridiculous argument, th…

Yes, a lot of griping about "standard time" is really griping about winter. There are fewer hours of daylight in the winter. That's just the way it is. You can't fool time.

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#94
post #43

It would be great to see Europe adopt it as well. Changing clocks twice a year feels outdated and more disruptive than beneficial.

Absolutely not. The time that would stay is the bad one. With switch, we get reasonable half a years. Without it, it would be whole unreasonable year.

The biggest unreasonability is switching at all. I admit other points of view, but switching back and forth is a compromise that seems far worse than just sticking with one. Either one.

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#95
post #31

I'm in BC. The astro-nerd in me would have preferred to see permanent Standard Time instead of a permanent +1 offset. Instinctively, I think morning light is important to our biology for a daily reset and the solar cue of "high noon" is also a real thing. I'm sure I've read that sleep health experts have historically supported a change to permanent Standard Time, not DST. I respect there are economic arguments for pe…

I've seen arguments about kids going to school in the darkness being thrown around a lot, but I've never understood why that (against fresh drivers) is always taken to be worse than kids coming home in the darkness (against exhausted drivers).

> I've seen arguments about kids going to school in the darkness being thrown around a lot

I’m sure there’s some correlation with the time zone, but it feels like a “think of the children!” argument that ignores much more significant factors (e.g. traffic speed and volume).

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#96
post #59

I fully support removing DST (as a parent at least, it's a PITA twice a year). However, clocks should show noon correctly, as best as they can within your chosen timezone. Also, I really like long evenings in the summer to get outdoors and go biking or hiking. It follows that we should abolish DST, stick to the correct time, and move regular school and business hours back one hour.

Good luck coordinating that.

School and business hours are already fairly arbitrary where I live. The only places observing "standard" hours seem to be banks and even many of those stay open later in the evening these days. Meanwhile the schools do everything based on juggling a limited number of busses meaning that start and end times are staggered over a period of 3+ hours. You see evidence of this in traffic patterns as well. It starts early with the trades and runs well into the late morning due (AFAIK) to tech.

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#97
post #35

Why now? From the Govt of BC press release: "The Interpretation Amendment Act, which is the legal framework that enables the Province to adopt permanent DST, became law in 2019. At the time, government chose not to bring it into force in order to co-ordinate timing with neighbouring U.S. states in the same time zone. Recent actions from the U.S. have shifted how B.C. approaches decisions that merit alignment, includi…

Notably Washington state legislated the same change to DST years ago (instead of standard time, the morons!) but the federal government never approved the switch. AFAIK it's still pending. I remain unclear what authority the federal government has over such a matter and why Washington (or any other) state has opted to respect it. What are they going to do if a state just ignores them and switches their clocks? Someti…

If US states want to get rid of time switches they are free to go to year-round Standard Time (like Arizona).

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#98
post #67
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen arguments about kids going to school in the darkness being thrown around a lot, but I've never understood why that (against fresh drivers) is always taken to be worse than kids coming home in the darkness (against exhausted drivers).

In addition to the reason already given (kids get home before the evening traffic picks up), another reason is that generally driving conditions are worse in the morning than they are in the evening so if there isn't enough light for both the morning and evening drives to be in light it is safer to give the light to the morning drive.

> kids get home before the evening traffic picks up

When we change the general time, this applies to school days as well as office hours, so the kids go home to evening traffic relation will stay constant.

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#99
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen arguments about kids going to school in the darkness being thrown around a lot, but I've never understood why that (against fresh drivers) is always taken to be worse than kids coming home in the darkness (against exhausted drivers).

Average school start/end times in BC are 8:30 AM and 3 PM. Standard time in Vancouver puts sunrise/sunset at 8AM/415PM at winter solstice for standard time. That's 30 minutes of daylight before school and 75 minutes after school. IOW, kids are more likely to be walking in the dark in the morning, even with standard time. Switching to daylight time will switch sunrise/sunset to 9AM/515PM, guaranteeing kids will be wal…

yeah the 4:15 PM sunset actually means it's getting dark at 3:30 PM. Pretty ridiculous. For everyone like "the kids have to walk to school in the dark!" it seems like they aren't considering that kids generally don't care at all what the morning is like because their day is about to be consumed by an obligation they never agreed to (school). When they're finally free for the day, it's effectively dark outside. The perspective among my peer group when I was a kid was that daylight savings system is totally clueless, has never made sense, and we should permanently switch to the schedule that allows more daylight after school (aka DST).

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#100

My dream world is everyone using 24 hour clocks set to UTC

My favorite depiction of your dream world: https://qntm.org/abolish

thank you for sharing, I was trying to find something similar that explains why UTC everywhere is such a bad idea!
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