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California may move to UTC-7 year-round

Friday, 29 June 2018 11:23:50 CDT David-Braverman Geography, Travel (1)

Governor Jerry Brown approved AB 807, which would put to the voters in November an initiative to go to "year round Daylight Saving Time:"

Wrote Brown in a signing message: "Fiat Lux!" (Let there be light.)

Assemblyman Kansen Chu, D-San Jose, who authored Assembly Bill 807, has called the practice of changing clocks twice a year, in the fall and the spring, "outdated." He argues altering the time by an hour has adverse health affects, increasing chances for heart attacks, workplace injuries and traffic accidents.

The ballot measure would overturn a 1949 voter-approved initiative called the Daylight Savings Time Act, which established Standard Pacific Time in California.

Should voters approve the ballot measure, the Legislature would then decide how the state's time should be set. Congress would have to sign off on Chu's main goal of establishing year-round daylight saving time.

If it passes, L.A. and San Francisco would see sunrises at 7:44 and 8:09, respectively. But sunsets would be 17:44 and 17:51. So...if you live in California, how would you vote?

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Comments (1) -

  • David Harper

    6/29/2018 7:05:42 PM +00:00 |

    This experiment was tried in Britain between 1968 and 1971.  Various justifications were offered, including improving road safety and boosting the leisure/tourism industry.  In a report commissioned by Parliament in 1970, two years into the experiment, it was noted that it was very unpopular in Scotland, where the Sun didn't rise until 10 a.m. in winter, and it was also unpopular with the building industry, because the later sunrise in winter did not give icy surfaces time to thaw before the start of the working day.  Road deaths had indeed declined, but this was likely to be due in part to introduction of much stricter drink-driving laws at around the same time, and the two effects could not be separated in the available data.

    Every autumn, when the clocks go back and the evenings are suddenly darker, the idea is revived briefly, but Britain has never attempted the experiment again.

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