At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) spoke to witnesses about stopping the clock and ending Daylight Saving Time, in which he broke out his Robin Williams impression.
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00:00That's a couple more questions, then we're going to wrap up the hearing.
00:05Mr. Caron, give us your best argument why recreational daylight is so important to your members.
00:18My members deliver joy for a living, and they happen to run businesses making that happen.
00:23So to them, if they saw more people in the afternoons and the evenings enjoying the outdoors with each other, it's why they get out of bed.
00:33It's why they do this.
00:34So they'll have better lives as business owners.
00:38They'll be able to pay the bills a little bit better and reinvest in their businesses if they had a little bit of a boost more in the afternoons and evenings.
00:45That was helpful, although I will say on the delivering joy, I couldn't help but think of, I think, the best comedy riff ever done, which is Robin Williams' Golf, which I will note is profane but screamingly funny.
01:03And he points out that golf was invented by the Scots and how infuriating it can be at time.
01:12And he said, I know we'll call it a stroke because when you miss, you want to have a stroke.
01:19Very good.
01:20All right, Dr. Johnson.
01:21Would shifting time zones slightly address the concerns for communities that are in dark zone areas if the clock were permanently set on daylight savings times?
01:40Does shifting the time zones make a difference?
01:43So we would encourage all states to be within their sort of time zone that is closest to the sun being overhead at noon.
01:52So, for example, like Indiana being more in the central time zone versus the eastern time zone would help get them more aligned with the sun.
02:02But it should be standard time.
02:04So there has been a push on the east coast to have us in Atlantic standard time.
02:08That is a time set for Bermuda.
02:10That is not the time set for any of the east coast.
02:14So, you know, we want permanent standard eastern time, not permanent standard Atlantic time, which is the exact same as permanent daylight savings time.
02:25Dr. Harkey, what has your research found as it relates to traffic accidents immediately following a time change?
02:34So that's what we were looking at as part of our research was in that five-week period before and the five-week period after the time change.
02:44And when we fall back in the fall, vehicle occupant deaths go down about 7%.
02:50And when they spring forward, vehicle occupant deaths go up about 12%.
02:57And the exact opposite with pedestrian and fatalities.
03:01So when we fall back, pedestrian and fatalities rise 13%.
03:06And then when we spring forward, they go down 24%.
03:09And so the net effect is almost zero between pedestrian and vehicle, pedestrian bicyclists and vehicle deaths.
03:19And so that's why our research really doesn't come out strongly in favor of either one.
03:24But what's clear is that darkness matters.
03:29And that's where we do about a quarter of our travel at night.
03:33And yet that's when 50% of the vehicle occupant deaths occur and when more than three-quarters of the pedestrian deaths occur.
03:41So regardless of what policy decision is made with regards to the time and where we set the clocks,
03:46we have to make sure we're continuing to improve our infrastructure, continuing to improve vehicle technology
03:53that will address the safety risk that we have at night in dark conditions.
03:59So you just said darkness mattered and it occurred to me an alternative title for this hearing
04:04instead of if we could turn back time, might have been hello darkness, my old friend.
04:11All right.
04:13Look, this hearing was important and I wanted to hear all this testimony.
04:16Because I personally struggle with the two choices here.
04:20Because it's a question of what do you care about more, sunshine and joy and fun and money,
04:28or health, mental health, physical health.
04:31And the honest answer for most people is, gosh, I care about all that stuff.
04:35So that's not an easy trade-off.
04:39The alternative that has been suggested is let each state make that decision.
04:43And I guess it's been pointed out that Senator Scott's bill does a version of that
04:50by picking daylight savings times but then letting states opt out.
04:54Let me ask you as a practical matter, does that work?
04:58Is functionally, how confusing is that having everyone pick different times?
05:06How does that work for commerce, for life, for knowing what the hell time it is?
05:11Let me have each of you answer that.
05:14Senator Cruz, thank you for that.
05:15The one little part of Senator Markey's history about when they changed the time in November
05:23was that the proposal was to move daylight saving time to finish at the end of November.
05:29And the airlines came back and said, no, no, no, no, we don't want a time change
05:32in the middle of our busiest travel season.
05:34And so they were going to scrap that and then they got the extra week to put it in.
05:38So, time is always complicated and the system that we have, the system that we, excuse me,
05:45the system that we have is complicated but it's complicated because it is a human creation, right?
05:52The sun moving around the earth doesn't actually have anything to do with time.
05:56Time is the agreement that we have about what 10 o'clock means because we don't want to go
06:01around saying, you know, the committee hearing will start when the sun is two hands above the horizon.
06:06We need this system.
06:08But the system has this bug right now and the bug is daylight saving time.
06:12It's the switching of the clocks.
06:13And so if we have a little bit of time, a couple of years so that the individual states
06:18can address all of these complexities and make those decisions,
06:22then we will be able to get rid of this bug permanently.
06:25It's something that we've been stuck with since World War I
06:27and this is our opportunity to finally fix it.
06:30Mr. Kerr.
06:31You know, I'm not going to say that government solutions cause more confusion,
06:35but you can imagine in this scenario that Florida is on daylight saving time,
06:43Georgia right above it's on standard, South Carolina is on daylight, et cetera,
06:47in the same spot because maybe special interests of all kinds made that happen.
06:52So I already have problems remembering which state is in which time zone as it is right now,
06:57sometimes the border states.
06:58To add to that, oh, they're in central and they're on standard.
07:02Oh, what time is it there exactly?
07:03So I can see where this causes more confusion.
07:07I wish I had a better answer for you on that one,
07:09but could we adjust and figure that out quickly?
07:13I don't know.
07:14I see it as problematic, but it may be the only way to thread the needle.
07:18Dr. Johnson.
07:19Yeah, I think, you know, the economy, the transportation industry,
07:23certainly needs consistency and alignment.
07:25So we want to make this change once.
07:28We don't want to pick something that's tried and been failed twice before such that we spend lots of money fixing it again in a few years.
07:36You mentioned the economy, which again, you know, is so important.
07:41And, you know, the majority of our workers start work early.
07:45The average work start time is 7.55 in the morning.
07:48So we'd be forcing people all winter to go to work in the dark, really affecting their productivity and economics.
07:57And so while, you know, certain businesses are going to have different, you know, benefits of the sun,
08:03I actually do want to give sun to people when they use it, when they use it to get up,
08:09when they use it to be healthy, when they use it to be more productive and efficient at work,
08:13and to improve the overall economy, not just niche, you know, businesses like the golf industry
08:20that have shown they can be very successful in standard time, like in Arizona.
08:25Dr. Harkey?
08:27Strictly speaking from a road safety perspective, I'm not sure it would make any difference
08:31if states were, had the right to select the time, because it's, again, it's about the amount of light,
08:37the amount of ambient light during the times of travel.
08:39And so I don't think it would have an impact.
08:43Personally, it would probably confuse me, but that's, we had that problem.
08:48I will give you a quick anecdote.
08:50Almost 40 years ago, we were collecting speed data in New Mexico and Arizona as part of a research study.
08:56Had no idea at that time, being right out of school, hadn't really paid attention,
09:00that Arizona did not bother to go to daylight savings time.
09:03All of our equipment was an hour off when we went to pick up all the speed data,
09:07and we had to adjust it after the fact.
09:09And so I think you would have those kinds of things, right, that could work their way into the system.
09:14Unintentional mistakes if we were to get into a system where we had a lot of different time zones going on.
09:22Well, I, for one, am thankful for these magic devices that we carry,
09:25that when I land on a plane, I look down to figure out what time it is,
09:29because I'm on a lot of planes, and it changes.
09:31I'm on a lot of planes, and it changes.
09:32I get it out.
09:32And I think that's important part of the UI that I need to be on force in a little bit.