What to do about that hour every fall and spring? Your thoughts on Daylight Saving Time

Daylight Saving Time is like the New York Yankees, or sushi: everyone seems to have a strong opinion on it.

California voters will have a chance to weigh in on the matter in November, after Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Thursday sending the proposal to the statewide ballot.

If approved, the ballot measure would overturn a 1949 voter-approved initiative called the Daylight Savings Time Act, which established Standard Pacific Time in California. It would be up to the Legislature to decide how the state’s time should be set, pending federal approval.

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who authored Assembly Bill 807, has called the practice of changing clocks twice a year, in the fall and the spring, “outdated.”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 that altering the time by an hour has adverse health effects, increasing chances for heart attacks, workplace injuries and traffic accidents.

The Modesto Bee posed the question on its Facebook page to gauge how folks felt about turning the clocks ahead every spring and back each fall. A sampling of their reactions:

Jamie Peterson Delgado would like to abolish the change: “My vote is to stop changing the time around. Let things be how they’re supposed to be. I hate the time change in either direction.”

Cody Lee agreed. “I’d like to be done with it personally.” Lee wrote. “It really messes with my sleep schedule. Which throws my whole day off. I really feel like it’s an outdated practice and has no place in modern times.

Jim and Darlene Broome like the idea of doing away with the twice-yearly task associated with Daylight Saving Time: “It would eliminate having to spend a lot of the little free time we have going around and changing clocks.”

Michelle Sharp Tanis likes one of the shifts, but not the other. “I’m a fan of the extra hour of sleep, but I hate setting the clock ahead and losing that hour. I wish we could just leave it alone and deal with the seasons.”

Finally, Lynn Bower took a practical approach: “I have no issue with it, really. It’s a little inconvenient for a day or two each time, but I’d rather put up with that than be out of sync with most of the rest of the country.”

This story was originally published July 1, 2018 at 2:56 PM with the headline "What to do about that hour every fall and spring? Your thoughts on Daylight Saving Time."