Senate Stalls 307-117 Daylight Saving Bill as Americans Roll Back Clocks

Q: If daylight saving time became permanent, how many more children would be heading to school before sunrise?

If daylight saving time were made permanent, researchers estimate children nationwide would make more than 2 billion additional trips to school before sunrise each year. That figure comes from a University of Washington study cited in the coverage. The researchers compared three scenarios — permanent standard time, the current clock-changing system, and permanent daylight saving time — using school start times and local sunrise data. In the 14 states they directly analyzed, permanent daylight saving time would create about 356 million extra before-sunrise school commutes annually compared with the current system. Extrapolated nationally, that rose to more than 2 billion. The study did not say 2 billion more individual children would be affected. Rather, it refers to additional child school commutes, or child-days of travel, in darkness over the course of a year. In the 14-state sample, the analysis covered about 8.6 million children at more than 16,000 schools. Researchers argued this matters because darker winter mornings could put more children on streets or at bus stops when drivers have less visibility. They found fatal school-morning crashes before sunrise were more likely to involve pedestrians, and for children ages 5 to 18 the odds were more than twice as high on dark mornings. So the best-supported estimate is not a headcount of extra children, but more than 2 billion additional before-sunrise school commutes nationwide each year under permanent daylight saving time.

3 articles · Updated · Fox News · Nov 1

Americans turned clocks back 1 hour Sunday after the Senate failed to act on a House-passed bill that would let states keep daylight saving time year-round.
The Sunshine Protection Act cleared the House in July by 307-117, but Senate leaders say there is no consensus and little floor time after the election.
Trump has intensified pressure on senators, demanding a vote and even posting ally Tom Cotton’s phone number as Cotton argued permanent daylight saving time would force children to travel to school in winter darkness.
The impasse leaves Congress again short of ending the twice-yearly clock change, despite bipartisan House support and broad voter frustration with the practice.