At a legislative committee meeting two weeks ago, one
lawmaker called for Utah to observe daylight-saving time throughout the
year. I’ve also seen calls on social
media to do the same. This option was
embraced by 18% of those who weighed in on the business.utah.gov/time website.
Those who advocate its year-round observance are evidently unaware
of what happened when Utah went on year-round DST beginning Sunday, January 6,
1974. By the following Friday, a Deseret
News headline read, “DST unleashes a storm of controversy.” The Governor’s office received “numerous
calls from people concerned about children walking to school, or waiting for
buses in the darkness” (Deseret News,
January 11, 1974, pages A1 & 6A)
School principals and superintendents also received “scores”
of calls requesting school start times be delayed until daylight, along with
“as many or more calls from citizens asking them to stay with daylight time
because any change would upset work schedules.”
Three children were hit by cars in the pre-dawn darkness and an East
High School student was raped and robbed on her way to class, all in the first
four school days of year-round DST. (Deseret News, January 11, 1974, pages A1
& 6A)
A woman in Layton wrote Governor Rampton: "somebody has
got to be joking, a sick joke I must add, about sending these small children to
school in the dark to save energy".
(Jan 27, 1974 letter from Wilma J Burton, Layton
84041. Rampton correspondence files,
Utah State Archives. Series 20904 reel
#6 designation box 3 folder 6)
The state school board, as well as the Salt Lake City and Weber
local boards, passed resolutions calling for the end of year-round DST for the
safety of our school children. (Rampton
correspondence files, Utah State Archives.
Series 20904 reel #6 designation box 3 folder 6; also Wayne Owens
papers, University of Utah Library Special Collections, MS 108, Box 34, folder
9)
On January 26, 1974, Governor Rampton wrote US
Representative Wayne Owens requesting Congress repeal the year-round DST law.
In Representative Owens’ February 4th response, he said his mail "expresses
sharp constituent opposition to DST during the winter months." The lawmaker noted he was "painfully
aware of the serious accidents which have occurred in Utah...involving small
children traveling to school in the dark morning hours." Even though he voted for it, Owens made an
about-face and said the year-round DST law should be rescinded only a month
after it was implemented. (Wayne Owens
papers, University of Utah Library Special Collections, MS 108, Box 34, folder
8)
The legislature, meeting in its budget session, joined the
growing chorus calling for an end to winter DST. The Utah Senate unanimously passed a
resolution on January 31, 1974, petitioning Congress for a DST-free Utah from
the First Sunday of October to the Last Sunday of March (1974 Utah Senate
Journal, p, 237). The Utah House
followed and passed the resolution by a 70-5 vote two days later (1974 Utah
House Journal, p. 293).
Sixty-four percent of Utahns said they opposed year-round
DST in a Bardsley poll published in the April 14, 1974 Salt Lake Tribune (p.
A7).
I don’t believe
year-round DST is allowed by federal law.
States must either exempt themselves entirely, as Arizona & Hawaii
have done, or observe it from mid-March to early November.
