On March 11, 2018, majority of the United States set their clocks ahead one hour. Florida on the other hand, doesn’t want to have to deal with this daylight savings routine anymore.
Because of this, the Florida Legislature passed a bill called the “Sunshine Protection Act”. This act would be asking Congress to allow the state to stay year-round on daylight savings time, which currently runs 8 months out of the year.
There are some benefits to Florida’s desire to stay on daylight savings all year round. There would be no more “falling” back and gaining an hour of sleep in November, and no more “springing” forward and losing an hour of sleep in March. These time changes throw our internal clocks off and they can sometimes be a real struggle to adjust to. If Florida goes on with year long daylight savings time, they will be enjoying extra daylight while the sun is setting on the rest of the East Coast.
There are many downsides to this permanent time change as well. In the article “Florida wants to spring forward to permanent daylight saving time”, they say that “the TV show “Saturday Night Live” would be more like “Sunday Morning Live,” starting at 12:30 a.m.” They also state that “for air travel, you may realize that your 9 a.m. flight from Miami to New York will arrive at 11 a.m. Eastern time instead of noon.” Another downside would be the difference in sunrises and sunsets. They would both be an hour later than the rest of the East Coast. This means that in Florida, it would be pitch black as late in the day as 8:30 in the morning, which is pretty odd for everyone.
There are some other states that have decided to branch off of the standard time zones and time changes in the US. Hawaii is three time zones away from the West Coast and is on standard time all year round. Arizona doesn’t do time changes, so they are on standard time all year long as well. The purpose of this is too lessen the scalding heat that they have in the summer.
In my opinion, I think that if Florida is going to stay away from time changes, then the whole country should. Although it makes sense for everyone to be on daylight savings time or standard time all year round, I think that everyone should stick to the regular time changes that occur throughout the year.
