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Daylight Savings 2011: When Do We Get to Fall Back, Dammit?

If you've noticed you're waking up to progressively dimmer skies each morning, you might also be wondering when the heck we get to reclaim that hour we sacrificed in the springtime for Daylight Saving Time. Well, you're going to have to hang tight another nearly two weeks, as we don't turn our clocks back an hour until November 6th.

The notion of shifting clocks to better take advantage of the sunlight goes back to Benjamin Franklin, but it didn't become a federal law (though not all states need to comply) until World War I. The government has tinkered here and there with when we turn the clocks ahead or back an hour, most recently in 2007, when we entered DST earlier as part of a plan to conserve energy.

So hang tight a few more days until we regain that precious hour. Your body clock will reset itself just fine, but in case your iPhone's clock doesn't (it happens!) you might want to employ a back-up come November 6.

And, psst: You might call it Daylight Savings Time, but it's technically called Daylight Saving Time.

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Comments [rss]

  • Why don't we set it back for Only One Half Hour, and leave it that way year round.  Split the difference between the AM people and the PM people.

  • simon168

    Agreed, not all states follow this stupid rule and most countries do not even care. This is one of the dumbest thing and doesn't serve any purpose in modern society except statistically speaking, auto accidents spike a little the week we go from standard to savings time. It is doing more harm than good.

  • jennix

    Personally I hate "Standard Time" in LA. What good is daylight between 6 & 7am when it's completely dark before 5pm? On Savings Time the very latest sunset of the year in LA is at 8:30pm, but sunrise is before 5am. When we revert to an agriculturally-based society it might matter, but these days sunrise before 6am is just silly. 

    Abolish "Standard Time" in California! Let's just stay on "Savings Time" and be done with it.

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