This is my fifth year advocating that we stop changing the clocks twice per year.
Photo by Majid Rangraz on Unsplash
In some ways, it is getting easier.
For instance, I once compiled a bunch of research, but then kept adding to it in various blog posts. Then I finally had the brilliant idea that should have come to me two years earlier: Just make a single page that has all the best research about DST.
That makes it easier when I discover yet another study showing that driving in the dark after work is more deadly than in the morning, I can just add it to the page.
Idaho on Line 3
It is also getting easier because instead of me calling legislators and trying to get them to take this issue seriously, I have legislators calling me, asking for advice, wanting research, model language, and just support. That is fun, and I wish I wasn’t so busy fixing fake news to be able to spend more time doing that.
But I can find some time, and was happy to get to testify in Connecticut recently.
It was great being there, and for those of you who (gasp!) don’t watch the whole thing, you should know that me being there may have helped broker a compromise that will help the bill pass, and help get the concept moving forward in Connecticut.
Indeed Connecticut is just one of more than two dozen states working hard on passing legislation. And they are getting further than ever before.
One small example: I’ve been working with a legislator in Wyoming for years, a very humble guy. He’s the opposite of the saying up there: “All hat, no cattle.”
In the past his bill died unceremoniously and quickly. This year his bill made it out of the House and came one vote away in the Senate. One vote! We’ll be back and get that one vote next year.
Getting the word out
The media has always been great about calling. Probably the highlight for me so far has been an interview with the New Yorker, but there could be a new highlight coming up soon. Stay tuned for that!
But I’m always happy to help local reporters around the country, and I always seem to be getting up extra extra early on the one day that I’d like to sleep in to do radio interviews.
That’s fine, though, happy to help. Just be in touch.
The hard part about #LockTheClock
The hard part of trying to fix Daylight Saving Time is that it hasn’t happened yet. It was totally clear five years ago that this needed to end, and yet nothing happened.
It was still clear four years ago, but that’s when a handful of states started taking this seriously.
Three years ago when a California legislator passed a resolution based on what I had written, that was awesome, but it did not create the tidal wave I was hoping.
Two years ago when politics seemed so broken after Brexit and Trump, I actually had some hope that fixing DST might be a way to move the conversation forward. It wasn’t.
Last year saw a huge number of bills going through state legislatures, and at the end of the year saw California voters overwhelmingly pass a measure to try to fix all this.
But this year, once again, the clocks will move forward. Once again the alarm clock on that Monday after will seem like an insult piled on a historical travesty.
And next year will probably be the same.
But still, I have hope. Things really are getting better, it’s just that I am only one person, and I don’t have a big business coalition behind me. That is fine, and maybe even better in the big picture because it is clear this is a genuine initiative, not something created in a soulless conference room somewhere.
It may not come this year, but it is coming. It is a rebellion, and those are built on hope, so I’m told.