Two years ago my wife and I decided to jump into a process we knew little about, with the end goal of changing something that has bothered so many people: how Colorado handles daylight saving time. To realize my hope of altering the antiquated and problematic system, we turned to the ballot initiative process. Our efforts fell short, but we gained some ground while establishing an improved understanding of how ending the madness would help every citizen.
Our goal was to keep daylight saving time going year-round. The result for most schools and for those who work traditional shifts would be more sunshine at the end of the day.
The research findings closest to my heart pertains to health as the owner of JRT Fit, a private personal training studio in Littleton. Heart attacks, auto accidents, and workplace injuries are worse the day after our springtime change. Seasonal affective disorder sufferers and special-needs children would benefit from a consistent year-round schedule. So why did I choose DST over standard?
Our state sits on the far eastern side of our time zone, while Arizona is on the far west. To benefit in the same way as they do, we would need to be on DST. Children walking to school in the dark would be a concern; however, our morning commute causes fewer problems than the evening one due to more attentive drivers in the morning versus tired or inebriated drivers in the evening. The mid-1970s year-round experiment confirmed that school-age children deaths decreased overall during that time.
A large benefit in Colorado for DST year-round would be strengthening our economy during the winter months. Most shoppers do not go to strip malls (where many small businesses, including mine, reside) after dark. Longer winter shopping days, along with keeping the “spring forward” week more productive than ever, would vastly help local businesses.
Our rush hour here in the Denver area is also a factor. Our morning rush hour is more spread out than the evening one, which lately seems to not end until 7 p.m. Most of our vehicles cause carbon emissions that either get broken up by the sunlight or build up our ozone when no sunlight is present. Having sunlight later longer would benefit our air quality.
The original reason for the implementation of DST was to decrease fossil fuel usage, which California (also at the far eastern edge of their time zone) has proven works in two studies.
I received an e-mail from a road construction worker that says that DST would greatly increase their safety in construction zones during evening rush hour. Vehicles whipping by them would see them a bit faster with more light shining later.
There are so many positive reasons why we should stay on DST year-round, but are there legitimate reasons that we shouldn’t? The ski industry claimed that it would make it so they couldn’t check the slopes for avalanches as effectively while starting more in twilight. My question for them: Wouldn’t you be able to shift your hours by an hour? It seems that the benefits for Coloradans far outweighs this one concern that seemingly could be easily rectified. I imagine that all active individuals here would love an extra hour of fishing, golfing, hiking, biking, and more while our children all get to be outdoors a bit longer each winter day. I also would imagine that most would let the ski industry know that they are thankful that we have all of these benefits.
We didn’t have the money needed (possibly millions), nor did we get the volume of volunteer support needed… 350 great people wasn’t even close to enough. Even still I would love to see it get on our next ballot.
Sean Johnson is the owner of JRT Fit, a private personal training studio in Littleton. E-mail him at sean@jrtfit.com.
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