by

Fred Swift

Hamilton County Reporter

(NOTE: This is a commentary written by Fred Swift of the Hamilton County Reporter. The views expressed are those of Fred Swift and do not necessarily reflect the views of LarryInFishers.com.  This opinion piece is posted here as part of a partnership between the Reporter and LarryInFishers.com) 

Daylight Saving Time starts Sunday at 2 a.m. It was just beginning to get light at 7 a.m. Now it will be dark again.

Of course it will be lighter in the evening, but with cold weather still here, what good does that do us?

Now I read that there is a move to leave us on Eastern Daylight the year around.

It’s time to stop this foolishness. Indiana belongs on Central Standard Time. That’s historically accurate and is easily seen by looking at a U.S. map.

The fact is come Sunday morning most of Indiana will be on double daylight time again as we now are every summer season.

Our state legislature’s desire to beat the clock and give us more light in the evening started in the 1960s when Indiana was “moved” from the Central Time Zone to Eastern thanks to various lobbying groups who wanted us on the same time as New York.

For many years we stayed on Eastern Standard the year around while most of the other states went to Daylight Time in the summer. That was not bad, but the pressure groups got busy again a few years ago and convinced the legislature we needed to observe Daylight time, which amounts to double daylight when compared with the Central Time zone where we really belong.

Hamilton County’s Sue Dillon has been working on this for years. She is sometimes misunderstood by folks who think she is against daylight time. No, she is telling us the simple fact that we belong on Central Time where we could observe daylight time in the summer.

Let’s not let this latest lunacy of maintaining Eastern Daylight the year around go any further or school kids will be standing in the dark at the bus stop until 8:30.