Explained: What is daylight saving time and why has the US Senate passed a bill to make it permanent?

The US Senate on Tuesday passed a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent across the country from next year, doing away with the practice of putting clocks forward and back twice a year in spring and autumn.

The Senate by unanimous consent passed S.623, known as the Sunshine Protection Act, in an effort to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.

The legislation, if also passed by the House of Representatives and signed into law by President Joe Biden, would establish a permanent Daylight Saving Time {DST}. It would stop the practice of turning clocks back by an hour every November, and DST, which starts in March, will be standard time throughout the year.

Let’s find out what is Daylight Saving Time and why does the US want to make it permanent:

What is Daylight Saving Time

Started in the US during World War I as an energy conservation trick, DST became a national standard in the 1960s.

In a bid to save energy, people reset their clocks ahead by an hour in spring, and behind by an hour in autumn. People in favour of DST argue that it means a longer evening daytime, since daily work routines end an hour earlier and that extra hour of daylight is supposed to mean a lower consumption of energy.

Setting the clocks an hour early in the summer months, the work day too starts and ends an hour early, leaving a considerable amount of actual daylight to be enjoyed during the evening hours.

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Why does the US want to make it permanent

It is not really about abolishing DST or keeping it the standard the year around, the matter of importance, according to scientific research, is not interfering with the biological clock.

Popular Science magazine in a recent article cited studies to list disadvantages of one hour of lost sleep in the US. One of the studies suggested an increase in fatal crash rate by 5.4 per cent to 7.6 per cent for six days following the transition.

According to a report by Vox, researchers at Johns Hopkins and Stanford universities in 1999 analysed 21 years of fatal car crash data from the US National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.

They found a very small but significant increase in road deaths on the Monday after the clock shift in the spring. The number of deadly accidents, according to the researchers, increased to an average of 83.5 on the “spring forward” Monday compared with an average of 78.2 on a typical Monday.

The impact of a changed sleep schedule was also reflected in a higher rate of workplace injuries after the switch, a drop in stock market performance, and even increased incidents of heart attacks.

With inputs from agencies

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