Get Ready To Spring Forward

This weekend is the weekend that we “spring forward” as Daylight Saving Time begins on Sunday morning at 2am. So, you need to remember to move your clocks forward one hour before you go to bed Saturday night, so you will lose an hour of sleep. If you don’t set the clocks up, you’ll be late to church or work Sunday morning.

The AAA says that drivers can be affected by the time change. They say a 20-year study published in “Current Biology” analyzed over 732,000 car crashes, finding a 6% increase in fatal crashes during the week following the switch to Daylight Saving Time. Megan Cooper with the AAA says the time change impacts daylight hours and sleep patterns, raising the risk of drowsy driving, which can contribute to a dangerous crash. She says even though it’s only a one-hour difference, some people experience what feels like a mini-jetlag after the time change and it can take time to get adjusted.

Daylight Saving Time was instituted to conserve energy in the US. However, studies have shown the energy saving from mov9ing the clocks up one hour is actually minimal at best. Recently, lawmakers have debated doing away with the time change altogether, but nothing has been passed.

Daylight Saving Time started in the US back in 1918 during World War One and became uniform across the US in 1966. Before that, some states observed the time change and others did not, causing mass confusion for transportation. For years the time change was from the last Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October. George W. Bush signed legislation in 2005 changing the time change to its current form in 2007. Daylight Saving Time will end this year on November 2.