On Sunday, you may have felt a little tired, a little rundown, a little off your game. This is normal. Do not despair. It wasn't you, it was your clock. For of course, on Sunday we switched from standard time to daylight saving time. You time traveled one hour into the future. Or, to put it in the ugliest manner possible: You lost an hour of sleep on Sunday morning but gained an hour of daylight beginning Sunday night.
We wouldn't normally bother with mentioning this at all. After all, daylight saving time has been a widespread practice for more than 100 years and a U.S. law since 1966. For most people, it's been a minor inconvenience with a significant payoff, but more about that later. And, frankly, it's never been easier to switch. Smart clocks and watches, computers, televisions, phones, even thermostats do it automatically.
Mostly gone are the days when people had to run around the house on Saturday night or Sunday morning resetting the clocks. Yet by the complaints posted on social media and elsewhere, you would think that daylight saving time or standard time, take your pick, was the worst thing around these days short of a certain viral infection.
Such whining used to be the sole province of cantankerous libertarian Westerners who resent government edicts as a rule, and certain dairy farmers whose cows (the bovine family never having been clock watchers, apparently) react poorly to a sudden change to milking schedules. Today, Arizona and Hawaii are the only U.S. states that do not recognize daylight saving. Some U.S. territories like Puerto Rico don't either.
Yet certain members of the Maryland General Assembly have now entered the fray. On Thursday, the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee held a hearing on legislation to make daylight saving time permanent in Maryland. That's right, permanent. No longer would the second Sunday in March be of any note when it comes to clock setting. Nor would the first Sunday in November. Just regular Sunday mornings.
The bill's sponsor, Carroll County Republican Sen. Justin Ready, said he finds folks like the extra hour in the evenings so he'd like to make it permanent. Of course, the biggest problem with his proposal is that Maryland doesn't actually have the authority to do that.
Under federal law, the state can choose not to recognize daylight saving but not to extend it beyond November. So the measure's supporters have proposed passing the legislation anyway and waiting and watching between July 1 and the end of 2025 to see if the federal government ultimately allows states to take such action. Then and only then, Maryland's plan can kick in.
In a word: Yikes. This is the kind of silliness that sleep deprivation gets you. And we would point a finger at Senator Ready, but he has four co-sponsors and a Southern Maryland Democrat, Del. Brian Crosby, has introduced a companion bill in the House of Delegates. So whatever he's tracked in from Carroll County must be going around.
What these supporters ignore is that while that extra hour of daylight sure is nice in the summer, the shorter days of winter are a little tougher on DST. As it stands now, the latest sunrise of the year is in January around 7:30 a.m. Keep daylight saving and it's 8:30 a.m., which means most winter morning commuting would be entirely in the dark. At a time of year when there's most likely to have sleet and snow and hazardous driving conditions. Not a good combination. Getting the kids out of bed on such days won't be a thrill either.
We appreciate that there are always some lawmakers who like to think outside of the box or march to their own drummers. Perhaps they might set their minds to more pressing issues than having their state deliberately be out of sync with 47 other states.
And yes, yes, we know other prominent individuals have complained about the time switching, including President Donald Trump, who tweeted a year ago that he'd support making daylight saving permanent nationally. He tweets a lot of stuff. That doesn't make it rational.
Hate the change? Better to give yourself a few days to adjust to the new time and carry on. Complain as much as you like, but trust us, you'll get over it. You always do.
