CENTRAL ILLINOIS (WCIA) – It’s something we know comes every year. When time “Springs forward” and then months later it “Falls back”.
Daylight Saving time started years ago as a way to help save energy, but now, many state and local governments want it to end.
“I have heard from so many different people. Students at schools I visited, parents, and elderly. Just all different ages groups and working groups of people that they just hate having to go through the time change,” Sue Scherer, State Representative, said.
She introduced a bill that would make daylight saving time the year round standard. She said the change, twice a year, is bad for people’s health and the economy.
Research from the Journal of Current Biology shows car accidents go up almost 10%. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine said people are more prone to heart attacks because sleep patterns are off, and there are higher rates of depression.
Scherer said research also shows it costs the U.S. more than 430 million dollars to change the time twice a year.
“In the olden days, we didn’t have the capabilities to do all this research and figure out how harmful and detrimental it was. We know better now,” she said.
Gibson City superintendent, Jeremy Darnell, said the past few years they have had bigger things to worry about at school, but he still said if he had his choice, he would end daylight saving time.
“Kids and transition are hard. It’s just like when we transition from summer to the start of the school year. It takes kids a while to readjust that they go to bed a little earlier, and have to get up earlier. So, if we don’t have those changes twice mid-stream in the middle of the school year, it would definitely be a benefit,” he said.
Right now, the bill is in a waiting period until the state goes into session in January. Sherer will request to move it to a specific committee, then it will be the regular process for a bill.
But federal law doesn’t allow full time daylight saving time. So, Congress would have to act before states could make the change.
There is a similar bill in Congress right now. It’s called the Sunshine Protection Act. It would make daylight saving time the new, permanent standard time for the United States.