I grew up with DST. In Maryland, barely on the eastern-most edge of the time zone, you were glad for those days of a little bit of stretched sunlight in the evening. The sun rose very early in the morning, so pushing it an hour later was never an issue. When I moved to Indiana, not having DST was an odd thing, but not really much of an issue. Located at the very far west edge of the Eastern Time Zone, summer evening were bright even without DST. I did not miss it at all. As a matter of fact, switching back and forth seemed fairly silly, and I quickly got used to staying on one time all the time. Then Indiana, rather than sticking up for a reasonable- though unpopular- stance finally gave in and went to DST.
It has only been in the last week or so that it is reasonably bright out by 7:15 am and I do not need all the outside floodlights turned on for my 8th grade daughter to catch the bus to school. Shifting to DST this weekend will mean that for at least another month it will be dark for another hour, pushing us back to fighting the darkness to get up and moving in the morning and having all the lights on while waiting for the bus. We could banish DST entirely and I would be perfectly happy. Still, when I see studies like this reported, it makes me laugh on the inside, knowing that even a somewhat scientific study showing that switching to DST actually cost us millions of dollars is unlikely to allow politicians to back down and change their position now.
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