Daylight saving time comes next weekend under new schedule

It's not quite time to turn the clocks back one hour. That will happen Nov. 4.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 changed daylight saving time dates to the first Sunday in November and the second Sunday in March.

The point of daylight saving time is to allow people to make more use of light in the summer. It shifts the clock forward an hour from spring until fall.

The last comprehensive studies of daylight saving time were done by the U.S. Department of Transportation in 1975. Those results indicated the time change reduced electricity use by 1 percent; traffic fatalities by 1.5 or more percent; and violent crime in some urban areas by 10 to 13 percent.

The Energy Policy Act requires the secretary of energy to report to Congress daylight saving time's impact on energy consumption by December of this year. Congress reserved the right to revert to the 2005 daylight saving time schedule after the report is filed but didn't set any conditions under which it would exercise that right.

Two U.S. agencies are responsible for keeping the country's time, the Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology and its military counterpart, the U.S. Naval Observatory. They jointly provide a Web site that includes educational links on time measurement and clocks, www.time.gov.

Does this affect you?

Have a comment?

Log on to semissourian.com/today