Readers React: Year-round daylight saving time is exactly what your teenager doesn’t need

To the editor: Like most people, I dislike the semi-annual time change. But unlike the 59.8% who voted for Proposition 7 last fall, I voted against it. That’s because I teach high school. (“Time’s running out on daylight saving shift,” editorial, March 10)

One of the latest reforms proposed for schools is to have them begin later in the morning because it’s much more difficult for teenagers to wake up at the same time adults and younger children normally do. Sleepy students do worse, so start school later, the thinking goes.

Circadian rhythm is set by the rising and setting of the sun, not by the setting of clocks. If we make daylight saving time permanent, teens will be forced to wake up an hour earlier from November to March, making the problem worse.

If instead we eliminate daylight saving time, we will effectively make all schools start an hour later from March to November. So let’s not “spring forward but don’t fall back,” as your editorial suggests; let’s “fall back then don’t spring forward.”

Daniel Carter, Torrance

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To the editor: Instead of trying to achieve year-round daylight saving time for California, this state and the other lower 47 should think bigger.

We ought to consider putting all of the continental U.S. in one time zone to enjoy the social benefits and economic efficiencies that other large land mass, single time-zone nations such as China and India enjoy.

All we need do is subtract 90 minutes from the Eastern time zone and add 90 minutes to the Pacific time zone — taking 30 minutes from the Central and adding 30 minutes to the Mountain — to have it always be 10 in the morning, whether in New York, Chicago, Denver or Los Angeles.

The change in sunlight angles on both coasts would fade quickly from our consciousness, just as the inconvenience of the semi-annual time change is soon forgotten each year.

Godfrey Harris, Los Angeles

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