While it's decidedly more attractive to roll our clocks back an hour this weekend to win back the hour that we lost last spring, there are still legions of people in Michigan and elsewhere who despise the whole Daylight Saving Time fiasco, calling it an exercise in futility at best and downright stupid at worst.
Whether you love or hate the time change each year, it's a necessary evil to keep your life in sync with everybody else being forced to go through the practice. In the long run, we Michiganders apparently brought the issue upon ourselves after initially rejecting the deal. When Congress originally passed the Uniform Time Act of 1966 requiring all 50 states to observe Daylight Saving Time, Michigan voters approved Public Act 6 of 1967, rejecting the practice, leaving the state on Standard Time.
At some point, we either felt the pressure to get back in sync with others or actually wanted to observe the practice one again, because in 1972 Michigan voters actually voted to repeal that act, and we began to change the clocks for Daylight Saving Time again in 1973.
A couple of Michigan Legislators launched efforts last year to get ride of the clock change regimen, but neither measure ever garnered enough steam to make it to the House floor. Ann Arbor Democrat Jeff Irwin submitted his plan in March of 2015, and Macomb County Republican Peter Lucido tried again in October of last year to keep Michigan permanently on Eastern Standard Time.
Congress extended the original plan by four full weeks in 2005 with the Energy Policy Act, taking the time changes to the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November. This year's time changes back an hour this Sunday, November 6, 2016 when we roll the clock back at 2am.
Representative Irwin told CBS Detroit last spring that the original reason for DST — saving energy in lighting — is no longer valid. He told them, "There's new research that shows that the clock setting dance that we volunteer for twice a year actually causes problems. It causes health problems, but perhaps even more importantly, it causes workplace accidents, and it causes an uptick in car accidents." He added, "So, it's not just cranky kids and folks that have a hard time personally adjusting to the time change."
Lucido told the CBS News crew the time change day "is the worst day of the year." He called for an end to the practice, saying, "Let's dispense with this failed Daylight Saving Time experiment."
Despite their proposed legislation, both bills have languished in the hopper somewhere in Lansing. The tourism industry is happy to see the bills lie idle. They want no part of losing an hour of valuable daylight during the busy summer tourist season.
Meanwhile, at least two other groups want us to consider a few other things while dealing with the time rollback. The Consumer Safety Commission is strongly encouraging installation of fresh batteries in smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detection alarms this Sunday when the time changes. They report that three out of five fire deaths occur in homes with no smoke alarms or homes without working smoke alarms. They should be placed on every level of your home, inside each bedroom and outside sleeping areas.
Carbon monoxide alarms are also important because of the invisible nature of the problem. You can't see it or smell it, but the poisonous gas can come from a variety of sources and can quickly incapacitate and kill people.
Meanwhile, Federal Emergency Management Agency authorities also suggest that you have a professional inspect the chimney and fuel-burning equipment such as fireplaces, furnaces, water heaters, wood stoves, coal stoves, space heaters and portable heaters to verify they work properly. FEMA also encourages home winterization at this time to extend the life of your fuel supply through proper insulation, caulking, weather-stripping, and installation of storm windows or plastic coverings.
