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Now might be the time for Central Standard

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published October 2, 2005

The fact that daylight saving time is going to start earlier in the year and end later in the year, beginning in 2007, still hasn't gotten much attention.

We probably won't really complain until it is too late, once March 2007 rolls around and we start waking up to 8 a.m. sunrises.

That's right. Daylight saving time will start on the second Sunday in March, which in some years could fall as early as March 8. That would put the sunrise at 7:48 a.m.

The time change would last until the first Sunday of November, which could fall as late as Nov. 7 - when the sun would rise around these parts at 7:46 a.m.

Bad idea. Terrible idea. Think of kids huddling at school bus stops in the dark, literally hours before dawn. I mean, even more than they do now. That's just one of several objections.

This change was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush as part of the big "energy bill" earlier this year. The argument is that a longer daylight saving time saves energy.

Back in July, I proposed that the Florida Legislature should reply by exempting Florida from daylight saving time before 2007. A state can do that.

But now Jeff Stabins, a county commissioner in Hernando County and a former state legislator, has a different idea:

Moving the entire state of Florida to Central Standard Time.

After all, Stabins points out, part of Florida's Panhandle already lies in the Central zone. We would be unifying our state, while putting the sunrise back where it ought to be.

Under Stabins' plan, we would still observe daylight saving time, we would just do it as a Central time zone state. Even at the latest, sunrise would still come before 7 a.m.

I have to admit that I balked at this idea at first. I've always liked living in the Eastern time zone. We're in synch with the rest of the East Coast. On the cutting edge.

Central time seems so ... Midwestern.

"Well, what's wrong with that?" Stabins replied. "I'd rather be with the good old-fashioned Midwestern values anyway."

Jay Leno and David Letterman would start just after 10:30 p.m. Some of us would have a better chance of staying awake for all of Monday Night Football .

As for the hassles of switching time zones each time we crossed into the Eastern zone, well, the airlines are pretty good at doing that already. Millions of Americans do it routinely.

If Florida tried this, it would not be alone. Several counties in Indiana, unhappy with a decision to impose daylight saving time statewide, have asked to move from Eastern to Central time.

Florida would not be able to make this decision for itself. A state can decide whether it likes daylight saving time, but a state can't switch time zones by itself.

Time, like everything else, is regulated by the federal government. Time even has its own Web site: www.time.gov

There's a federal law called the Uniform Time Act that establishes the Atlantic, Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones, and sets out the rules for daylight saving time.

Time zones can be set by two methods. The first way is by rule of the U.S. Department of Transportation (remember, uniform time was created in the first place to standardize the railroad schedules).

The other method is by an act of Congress. The Uniform Time Act has plenty of loopholes written into it. Idaho gets a special mention, as do parts of Texas and Oklahoma. The law says, in part:

So, you see, there is nothing sacred or immutable about time zones. Time itself turns out to be just a matter of politics, lobbying and public opinion. What's yours?

[Last modified October 2, 2005, 01:57:16]