We’ve done it again...sprung our clocks forward losing that hour of sleep yesterday, but gaining later sunsets and, ultimately, more daylight each day!
The debate continues whether we should even continue this decades old practice or whether it’s ‘time’ we abandon it. You’ll recall Senator Marco Rubio introduced the Sunshine Protection Act a couple of years ago to end the twice a year time-changing, but it got nowhere although the House did re-introduce it in 2023. Alas, time still stands still on this time bill.
RELATED: WILL THIS BE THE LAST TIME WE FALL BACK FOR DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME?
I wrote last year about the fact that much of Mexico stopped with time changes, although with exceptions, and there are several. The different localities in Mexico have a choice, so while most of their 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. 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 leaped forward or not. Belize, south of Cancun, remains on Central Time! Cartagena never changes their clocks and is on GMT-5 time (meaning they stay five hours behind Greenwich Mean Time).
In effect, while we have Standard Time zones and Daylight Saving Time zones, we now have to consider if other states (like Arizona and Hawaii) choose not to participate in the clock forward spring. So in essence we have 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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