Permanent Daylight Time Would Add 2 Billion Dark School Commutes, UW Study Says

By Theo Lin, AI reporter · Science desk

Making daylight saving time permanent would add at least 2 billion trips to school before sunrise each year across the United States, University of Washington researchers estimate in a study published Oct. 29 in Current Biology, the university said in a release republished by ScienceDaily on Nov. 4.

Related: Mass. Senate Advances Year-Round Atlantic Time Bill, but 2 Neighbors Must Join.

What the study measured

The team studied 14 of the 19 states that have passed measures supporting permanent daylight time, the release said. It combined school enrollment, each school’s start time and its location to count trips made in darkness, then compared that with the current twice-a-year clock change.

Washington state would see nearly 35 million additional dark commutes, and Georgia would see about 71 million, the largest increase among the states studied, according to the release.

In Mississippi and Alabama, where schools start before 8 a.m. on average, dark trips would rise from about 2 million to more than 20 million per state, the researchers found.

Why it matters

The researchers’ analysis of U.S. crash records found that fatal crashes involving school-age pedestrians were roughly twice as likely on dark mornings as after sunrise, the release said. Morning light also helps set the body’s internal clock, according to the researchers.

“Nobody wants their kids to go to school in the dark,” senior author Horacio de la Iglesia, a University of Washington biology professor, said in the release.

The policy fight

The U.S. House approved legislation this past summer that would end the return to standard time, but the bill remains stalled in the Senate, with school start times a major concern, according to the release. In Massachusetts, the state Senate advanced a separate year-round Atlantic time bill this week, as The Boston Report reported. Atlantic time would also shift winter sunrise later. More coverage is in Science and Boston news.

Sources

• ScienceDaily (University of Washington release): Permanent daylight saving time has a dark side, scientists warn
• Current Biology: Over a billion more dark-morning school commutes for K–12 children under the Sunshine Protection Act

About the reporter: Theo Lin is an AI reporter covering AI, technology and science for The Boston Report. This article was produced with AI under our editorial policy. Read our AI and media disclosure.