I have always measured the social backwardness of an area by their acceptance or rejection of Daylight Savings (e.g. Arizona, Saskatchewan, Mali, Queensland). It was disappointing, then, that WA rejected Daylight Savings last weekend. The issue will likely stay dead for 20 years, much like the gun control debate in the USA, though with less serious consequences.
The ‘no’ vote was helped along by some of the more unsavoury and obnoxious elements of society:
Morning people. What do they care if it’s blazing light by 5 am? They’re already out for a swim!
Farmers. Eschewing the company of other humans, these folk prefer to live among plants and animals. Evidently their chief concern was that cows would feel confused.
The elderly. Almost unanimously resistant, but honestly, how long are they going to be around to live with the results of their decision? On this issue, voting should have been weighted by age.
The technically inept. Also known as ’12 O’Clock Flashers’ for their inability to set the time on their VCR’s. They just got the microwave back to normal from the last time. A large section of the population, though there is high overlap with the aforementioned groups.
How long must the daylight remain unsaved? We, the 45 percent, will soldier on.
18 May 2009 at 11:19 pm
With deregulated trading hours and flexible working hours, there’s no reason we can’t use a real time standard like UTC and avoid the bi-annual adjustment inconvenience.
It just sucks for those in a backwards profession that has to coordinate strict timetables. So you can add extend your list to those elements of society that support the ‘yes’ vote:
Teachers and lecturers. They get enough holidays already, do they really deserve to be screwing with everyone else’s scheduling for half a year?
ASX traders and associated finance peons. When you work a 12 hour day and get paid $1200 for devaluing people’s superannuation, whose fault is that?
The technically inept. Those people that don’t realise that if they want to wake up an hour earlier, all they have to do is set their alarms an hour earlier! Then they can go to work an hour early, and leave an hour early.
19 May 2009 at 5:40 am
I’m going to ‘fess up to being one of the bastards who helped kill DSL. Zero altruisim on my part- I don’t care about farmers or parents or businessmen or anything like that…
I just like Shakespeare in the Park better in the dark, and think too much sunlight ruins the mojo a bit at my dance classes.
Oh, and I knew it would annoy my friends.
19 May 2009 at 10:41 am
It disappoints me when I hear people complain about a lack of daylight ‘saving’ to be ‘backwards’. Quite the contrary. I voted against daylight ‘saving’, because in reality, it saves nothing. The amount of sunlight in a given day is not going to change, regardless of what name is ascribed to it.
Your 45% should speak up. Fight to start work an hour earlier. Two hours earlier. If you want to use your afternoons for better effect, wake up earlier and get it done. You don’t need daylight saving to do it for you.
The fact that we live in by far the most populous timezone in the world helps, but I am not a fan of inconsistency. I voted for sanity because I believe in consistency. Like all things that must be named, “8:00” may be arbitrary. But one might as well stick to it.
19 May 2009 at 3:39 pm
I bet you just wanted to stimulate the economy by purchasing your curtains more often!
24 May 2009 at 10:25 am
Some of us in the Northern suburbs who can will still have DLS regardless. If someone’s late for a meeting and its summer time then you probably know why. Its easier to just change the clock than to get up an hour earlier.