Don't forget...

... to turn your clock an hour ahead tonight!

DST Fun Facts

The official spelling is Daylight Saving Time (DST), not Daylight SavingS Time.

The First DST was enacted in the USA on March 19, 1918, "An Act to preserve daylight and provide standard time." only 7 years until the 100th anniversary!

Implementation of DST has been fraught with controversy since Benjamin Franklin conceived of the idea.

The federal law that established "daylight time" in the United States does not require any area to observe daylight saving time. But if a state chooses to observe , it must follow the starting and ending dates set by the law. Starting in 2007, it is observed from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November, adding about a month to daylight saving time.

Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Nation), Hawaii and the territories of Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa are the only places in the U.S. that do not observe DST and stay on "standard time" all year long. If you've spent any time in the sweltering summer sun in those regions you can understand why residents don't need another hour of sunlight.

Most of Canada uses DST. Some exceptions include the majority of Saskatchewan and parts of northeastern British Columbia.

It wasn't until 1996 that our NAFTA neighbors in Mexico adopted DST. Now all three Mexican time zones are on the same schedule as the United States.

Also in 1996, members of the European Union agreed to observe a "summer-time period" from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October.

Most countries near the equator don't deviate from standard time.

In the Southern Hemisphere, where summer arrives in what we in the Northern Hemisphere consider the winter months, DST is observed from late October to late March.

A study by the U.S. Law Enforcement Assistance Administration found that crime was consistently less during periods of DST than during comparable standard time periods.

Several studies in the United States and Great Britain have found that net traffic accidents and fatalities drop by close to one percent.

Because people are home fewer hours during the "longer" days of spring and summer, they don't turn on appliances and lights, and less electricity is used.