Biannual time change must end, but Floridians may not like the best alternative | Opinion

If you woke up cranky and sleep-deprived on Monday, you must know that the antiquated practice of time change needs to end in the U.S. On Sunday, we were forced once again to “spring forward” and set our clocks forward an hour to observe Daylight Saving Time.

There are a lot of people across the political spectrum who agree we should stick to one time and end the biannual clock changes. That’s good. The question is how.

This may not be a popular opinion in the Sunshine State, but the best way to “freeze the clocks” may be to stop springing forward. That would mean we stick to standard time year-round (that’s the “fall back” time we observe in the fall and winter).

This goes directly against what Florida lawmakers already voted on in 2018: to be on permanent Daylight Saving Time. That needs congressional approval, so Florida’s U.S. Sen. Rick Scott has refiled bipartisan legislation to make Daylight Saving Time — or DST — the national year-round standard. Supporters say DST equals longer afternoons and more time for people to enjoy daylight, go shopping and exercise.

We appreciate Scott’s effort to end this outdated practice, and to do it in a uniform fashion across the U.S., but permanent DST has many pitfalls.

The practice of “springing forward” is an artificial, human-made convention first adopted during World War I as an attempt to conserve energy — though there’s debate about its actual savings. Arizona and Hawaii, as well as U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico, do not observe DST.

Meanwhile, standard time most closely aligns with our body’s circadian rhythms, which regulates sleep, and leads to better health outcomes, according to several experts.

A 2025 Stanford Medicine study concluded that permanent standard time would result in 300,000 fewer people having suffered from a stroke because of time changes. Permanent DST would achieve about two-thirds of the same effect. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine advocates for the end of DST and for permanent standard time. Other medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, share this position.

“Permanent standard time helps synchronize the body clock with the rising and setting of the sun,” said Dr. James A. Rowley, president of the AASM said in a 2023 statement.

If you need more evidence, just look at America’s own precedent.

In the 1970s, Congress decided to observe DST year-round. That only lasted 10 months after widespread frustration and early-morning car crashes. Seventy-nine percent of Americans favored the change before it went into effect, according to the Washington Post. But once they began to experience it, many people had buyer’s remorse.

The New York Times called the change “the Second Dark Age.” Children carried flashlights to school. A man told the Times back then that it was “pitch black at 7:30 in the morning.”

Advocates for permanent DST seemingly ignore that later sunsets also mean later sunrises — and more people commuting or going to school in the dark.

In Miami-Dade, the latest sunrise would happen at 8:10 a.m. under year-round DST, instead of 7:37 a.m., according to a 2024 Washington Post analysis. Parts of North Florida wouldn’t see the sun until 8:30 a.m., when many schools have already started and people are already at work or on their way.

The impact on northern states would be much worse than in Florida, with winter sunrises later than 9 a.m. No wonder Americans in the 1970s said sunless mornings made them “cranky, sad and less safe,” the Post reported.

The trade-off by switching to permanent standard time, of course, would be shorter afternoons. Parts of Maine, for example, would see darkness as early as 3:45 p.m. In Miami-Dade, that change wouldn’t be so drastic: the earliest sunset would happen at 5:31 p.m. in the winter and the latest at 7:15 p.m. in the summer, according to the Post analysis. Not bad.

In the end, people may disagree on the solution to this biannual problem. But enough state and national leaders realize how unproductive and annoying changing the clocks is every spring and fall. Let’s put an end to it, one way or another.