HOUSTON – And just like that...millions of Americans lost an hour of sleep yesterday as clocks went forward an hour for Daylight Saving Time.
After the Senate unanimously passed the Sunshine Bill last June, a lot of folks thought perhaps we wouldn’t be going through this again, but the bill expired and will have to be reintroduced if lawmakers are to reconsider. I guess you could say they are taking their time?
Anyway, what I did not realize is that last year Mexico went ahead and pulled the plug on Daylight Saving Time! But not everywhere! The different localities have a choice, so while most of the states and cities did NOT lose an hour yesterday and stayed right where they are, others just across the U.S. border followed our lead for the sake of consistency.
And then there is Cancun, which lobbied successfully to become an Eastern time zone city. However, at the same time, residents do not change their clocks forward now. So while Cancun was an hour ahead of us on Saturday, they are now the same time as us until we change back again, and yet they are technically Eastern and we are Central! Confused yet? Time for a graphic.
What’s crazy is that Cancun, Panama, Jamaica, Havana, Miami and the Bahamas are all in the Eastern time zone, but time depends on whether they leapt forward or not. Belize, south of Cancun, remains on Central Time! Cartegena never changes their clocks and are on GMT-5 time (meaning they stay five hours behind Greenwich Mean Time).
In effect, we now have Standard Time zones and Daylight Saving Time zones, but now have to consider if other countries (like Arizona and Hawaii) choose not to participate in the clock spring, in essence creating a third We Don’t Change time zone!
On the other hand, China -- almost the size of the USA -- has just one time zone. Beijing Time. So there’s that.
Good luck!
Frank
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