Georgia

Lawmakers looking at bill aimed at keeping daylight saving time

By Richard Elliot, WSB-TV
By Richard Elliot, WSB-TV

ATLANTA — In just over two weeks, we’ll be springing forward and setting our clocks for daylight saving time.

A lot of people don’t like losing that hour of sleep, but others love the extra daylight in the evening.

Lawmakers are considering asking voters if they’d like to pick daylight or standard time and leave it there year-round.

“The government is in charge of the clocks. The clocks are killing the people,” said time change expert Scott Yates, who flew in from Denver to talk to lawmakers about switching back and forth between daylight saving and standard time.

Yates told Channel 2 political reporter Richard Elliot that the time change causes all kinds of problems from an increase in heart attacks and traffic accidents to, he claims, tougher prison sentences from sleep-deprived judges.

He doesn’t care which time gets picked so long as time stays the same.

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“The main idea is we want to lock the clock. Like, there’s some people who think standard time is better. Some that thing daylight saving is better, but there’s nobody that thinks changing the clocks is great,” Yates said.

The lawmakers aren’t deciding what Georgia will do, daylight or standard, but they could let Georgians decide which they like best in a nonbinding referendum.

“There’s so many problems that we have when it changes,” said Bryleigh Brock with Girls Scouts from Troop 16184, who were taking a tour of the Capitol on Tuesday.

The Girl Scout troop left the hearing thinking they like the idea of no springing forward or falling back.

“It’s just hard in general to keep up with the time and to keep on switching your clocks,” said Zoe Elgin.

There was no vote Tuesday on the possible referendum. That could come Monday March 2.

© 2020 Cox Media Group

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