Radium water as energy drinks, cigarettes as a cure for asthma, asbestos as a fireproofing agent—there are many relics of the early 20th century we’ve left behind as we’ve determined they no longer serve our modern society. Whether it was because they were outdated, inconvenient, or—like the examples above—downright dangerous, we’ve decided to leave them in the past. It’s time to do the same with the switch from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time.
Daylight Saving Time was first introduced in 1918 as a wartime measure, adding more daytime hours to conserve energy resources. It was reintroduced in the 1960s, and since then, has been in place in nearly all of the United States. In the intervening decades, research has proven the bi-yearly time switch is not only inconvenient, it can also be detrimental to health and safety. The switch from Daylight Saving to Standard Time has been shown to disrupt circadian rhythms, increase incidents of heart attacks and traffic accidents, even contributing to an uptick in crime.
I have introduced a bill that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent, which would mean no more time switching, and later sunsets in winter. This bill would work in coordination with Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and would allow New York to say goodbye to this reset forever.
The time-switch has real repercussions on our economy and our daily lives–and the time has come to finally end this nonsense.
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