Seasonal time options? Just pick one

The Globe and Mail in Canada had its semiannual article about the switch from Daylight Savings Time back to Standard Time on the first weekend of November. Bob posted a comment about the grumbling every March and November (it used to be every April and October).

Twice each year, we adjust our clocks to keep our mornings sunlit in winter, and our evenings bright in summer. Changing that status-quo needs to be a multinational initiative, not a patchwork of state or provincial policies, Bob writes.

The Globe and Mail article on switching back to standard time makes a strong and obvious point: you don’t get more daylight with either of standard or daylight saving time, it’s just when you get (or prefer) your daylight.

More importantly, interconnected nations like Canada, the USA and the European Union need to have their collective act together. North America’s industrial and commercial heartland in the Northeast, Great Lakes and Midwest regions need to at least agree on what time of day it is throughout the year. Thus, no single U.S. state or Canadian province ought to change time unilaterally. Ideally, Canada, the USA and Mexico, along with the European Union, ought to make up their minds as a group and either stay with the seasonal status quo or go with year-round standard or daylight time.

What we don’t need is a preventable and foreseeable tragedy such as a train or aircraft collision because a programmer got the time change algorithm wrong in a patchwork of different provincial and state time zone changes.

The semi-annual bleating aside, the two time changes really matter little. Few of us even consider the impact of a one-hour time change such as a flight between, for example, Toronto and Halifax. Life as we know it can continue either way.