Daylight Saving Time Begins: When To Change Your Clocks In GA

GEORGIA — Tonight's the night — it's time to set the clocks ahead an hour and enjoy later sunsets in Georgia with the beginning of daylight saving time at 2 a.m. Sunday, March 9.

Medical experts say daylight saving time disrupts the human body’s natural circadian rhythms. Increases in the risk of heart attacks and strokes, mood disturbances and traffic crashes due to decreased alertness are also associated with the time switch. Parents say it throws off their kids’ bedtimes.

Those who argue for daylight saving time cite the economic benefit of more daylight in the evenings when people are out of school or work and can patronize more businesses and restaurants and participate in more outdoor community activities. Others cite research that suggests permanent daylight saving time reduces crime.

AAA said drivers and pedestrians may be at a greater risk of the dangers associated with drowsy driving. According to the latest data from the Governors Highway Safety Association, nearly 78% of pedestrian fatalities happened in the dark in 2022, up from 75% in 2021.

“The morning commute, for several weeks to come, will be much darker than what drivers have been accustomed to in the last few weeks,” said Ragina Ali, AAA spokesperson for Maryland and Washington, DC. “It’s important for drivers to be alert and remember that children will be on their way to school and may be hard to see.”

Previous AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety research found that the number of drowsy driving crashes are much higher than official government statistics. The AAA study estimates that drowsy driving is a factor in roughly ten times as many traffic fatalities as traditional crash data indicates.

Research found 18% of all traffic fatalities between 2017 and 2021 were estimated to involve a drowsy driver, accounting for nearly 30,000 deaths. In 2021 alone, an estimated 6,725 lives were lost in drowsy driving crashes.

Common symptoms of drowsy driving include:

• Trouble keeping eyes open
• Trouble keeping your head up
• Drifting from your lane
• Cannot recall last few miles driven
• Feeling restless or irritable
• Daydreaming or wandering thoughts

Tips To Stay Safe On The Road:

• Ensure you get enough sleep before driving. Aim for at least seven hours of sleep per night.
• Travel at times of the day when you are normally awake.
• Listen to your body. If you start to feel tired, pull over and take a break. Don't try to push through it.
• Travel with an alert passenger and take turns driving. Sharing the driving can help you stay awake and alert.
• Don't underestimate the power of a quick nap. A 20- to 30-minute nap can significantly improve your alertness.

In 2020, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine said it believed the United States should “eliminate seasonal time changes in favor of a national, fixed, year-round time.”

Year-round DST would mean that, in early January, the sun wouldn’t rise until well after 8 a.m. in many parts of the country, particularly in the northern U.S. And year-round standard time would push sunrises to as early as 4:30 a.m. in some areas.

If nothing happens at the federal level and DST takes effect as scheduled on Sunday, March 9, it will end on Sunday, Nov. 2 — again assuming nothing happens in Washington to stop it.

Trump Weighs In On Daylight Saving Time

There’s a chance this could be the last time we “spring forward,” as the practice on the second Sunday in March has become known, or that we’ll just leave the clocks alone.

President Donald Trump said in a December post on his Truth Social platform that “the Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t!”

“Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation,” he wrote.

However, it’s unclear if Trump favors standard or daylight saving time as a year-round permanent time. In 2019 during his first term in the White House, Trump said on the platform now known as X, “Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is OK with me!”

It’s unclear if Trump and Republicans intend to prioritize the adoption of a year-round permanent time. Ending the clock changes requires action by Congress.

• Related: Will Trump And GOP Majority End DST?

Nearly every U.S. state has considered multiple time zone bills since 2015, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and 20 are poised to take effect if Congress allows it.

Polls over the years — A YouGov survey in 2023,a Monmouth University poll in 2022 and an Associated Press-NORC poll in 2019 —have shown a majority of Americans are weary of fiddling with their clocks twice a year. Where they disagree is whether the permanent time should be standard or daylight saving.

An informal, nonscientific survey of Patch readers last fall mirrored the findings of those and other polls on whether to keep or ditch daylight saving time.

“Whatever is chosen, just keep it the same. Stop changing the clocks!” a reader from Virginia told Patch. “I literally have to take off the Monday and Tuesday after the spring forward, or my work suffers for a week. It takes me that long to adjust.”

• Related: Patch Survey: Keep Or Kick DST?