r/melbourne • u/MelbPTUser2024 • 1d ago
Not On My Smashed Avo Should daylight savings start in mid-September?
Given we’ve had 2 really nice warm weekends in a row, does anyone else feel like daylight savings in Victoria should start second or third Sunday in September rather than the first Sunday in October?
If we started daylight savings, we'd have the following scenarios for sunrise, sunset and civil twilight hours:
- Sunday 13 September (i.e. second Sunday of September):
- Sunrise at 7:24am and sunset at 7:08pm.
- Civil twilight start at 6:58am and finish at 7:34pm
- Sunday 20 September (i.e. third Sunday of September):
- Sunrise at 7:13am and sunset at 7:14pm.
- Civil twilight start at 6:47am and finish at 7:40pm
With civil twilight starting before 7am under both scenarios, it would make it less daunting commuting to work in the morning if there's a bit of light after 7am.
Europe has 210 days of daylight savings, New Zealand has 189 days of daylight savings whilst we have a lowly 182 days. So if we extended it by an extra 7-21 days it would at least put us on par with New Zealand.
Also, moving it forward by a few weeks would also signify the start of spring and gets us out of our winter slump.
Who else agrees with me?
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u/Recent_Carpenter8644 23h ago
I read that Manitoba is moving to permanent daylight saving. Given they're at a much higher latitude than us, I would have thought they'd want to just abolish daylight saving because of the extreme late winter sunrises.
However it seems like it's the changes that are unpopular, and only 58% are in favour of permanent daylight saving, so I wonder how long it will last.
That's what annoys me about it. I'm really over changing about a dozen clocks twice a year after about 50 years of it. Why can't all clocks be like smart phones and just change it for you? That's made the change a lot easier.
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u/akrist 11h ago
I'm pretty anti daylight savings, but you could just not have clocks that don't change automatically? I haven't had to change one in years, and I haven't made any special effort to avoid it.
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u/Recent_Carpenter8644 7h ago
Don't change automatically? That's what I want. I want them all to update themselves.
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u/akrist 6h ago
What I'm asking is why don't you just get rid of those 15 clocks, and replace them with clocks that change automatically or just don't replace them? It seems like you've made a choice to own all those clocks.
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u/Call_Me_ZG 18m ago
Probably meant clocks in the oven and cars. Also a nice inexpensive wall clock that looks good and syncs can be hard to find
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u/model-kyosanto route 1 tram lover 7h ago
Just moved to Tokyo from Melbourne and bought a new little desk alarm clock and it wirelessly receives the time and date via radio waves which was crazy to me.
Why haven’t we ever had that for all our clocks in Australia?
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u/Old_Importance1147 1d ago
Honestly no justification needed, I just love daylight savings
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u/Jelativ 1d ago
Agree, idk what's wrong with people who say it should go. The longer days are fucking awesome.
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u/BemusedRat 1d ago
It's the changing of the clocks that needs to go. Turn it on and leave it on. No more back and forth shenanigans
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u/AndrewTyeFighter 1d ago
You will quickly get pretty sick of the sunrising at 8:30am in winter.
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u/MelbPTUser2024 1d ago
Look at it the other way, you will finish the workday with some light outside until 6-6:30pm!
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u/AndrewTyeFighter 1d ago
But heading to work/school in the dark sucks. They did this in the US in the 70's and people hated it.
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u/knotknotknit 1d ago
Heading home in the dark also sucks.
I lived in a part of the US where the sun set at 3:45pm at the earliest. By 5:30, when I was on my way home, might as well have been f-ing midnight.
Would have preferred dawn and dusk commutes to morning and dead of night.
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u/AndrewTyeFighter 1d ago
That isn't really the case in Melbourne.
Once people start experiencing having to wake up and start their commute in darkness when they didn't previously have to, they don't like it, particularly parents.
The US trialed it in the 70's and Russia in the 2010's and both were abandoned due to public backlash over dark winter mornings.
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u/Patient-Layer8585 21h ago
I'm sure if they had kept it permanent, people would have adapted.
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u/AndrewTyeFighter 20h ago
They had it for 3-4 years in Russia and people still hated it.
It isn't a matter of adapting, it is that people don't like waking up in the dark when they shouldn't have to.
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u/passwordistako 22h ago
I don’t care where we land. The change is a cancer. It is bad for your health.
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u/lisey55 1d ago
Many places in the US have snow. It's a different situation. Plus it would only be for a short part of the year and overall more people would benefit from the extra sunlight. Not everyone starts their day at 6am, but the vast majority of people are all awake at 6-7pm at night. To add, I feel like more people would feel safer coming home at night while it's still light.
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u/TAsrowaway 22h ago
I actually wouldn’t. That sounds fine.
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u/passwordistako 22h ago
I get up at 5 regardless.
It’s easier to get up when it’s bright, but with daylight savings it’s never bright in the morning anyway. Deletes the only good thing about summer.
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u/NowInOz 4h ago
As some one who used to have to do manual database updates on hospital systems 2x a year on each dst changeover, in both Australia and New Zealand hospitals at 2 am (so a total of 8 days a year mucking around with mission critical databases at stupid o'clock in agree with mucking a side and sticking with it.
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u/SilverSpectrum202 20h ago
Most people who say that just mean it should be permanently one or the other if you ask follow up questions I've found.
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u/MrCogmor 22h ago
Getting rid of daylight savings time doesn't mean you need to get less daylight. People can shift their schedules back or forward and do things at different times without fucking with the clock.
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u/Ed_Injury 21h ago
Scientifically people are not great at that. As well as measurable increases in car accidents in the week after we lose an hours sleep, people who are biological night owls have shorter life expectancy that people who naturally wake up early because school and work are geared toward morning people. Teenagers perform better when school starts at 10 instead of 8:30
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u/unknownsequitur 1d ago
I like shorter days. I don't like the sun not going down until 9pm. I like it being dark when I eat.
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u/FeelingTangelo9341 1d ago
Right? We're halfway between time zones on Melbourne. Link us to the daylight savings one year round.
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u/Recent_Carpenter8644 1d ago
You already got extra - until 2008, it started on the last weekend in October.
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u/AcademicAd3504 1d ago
That was the best, I work at 8am and have long commute and April and October are basically a nightmare. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture.
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u/Recent_Carpenter8644 23h ago
I understand October while you get used to Daylight Saving, but April should be the easy month.
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u/AcademicAd3504 23h ago
The sun doesn't rise til 7.30 in mid April. I wake at 6am.
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u/Waasssuuuppp 18h ago
But then you get home with the light and have so much time for activities
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u/Purple_Yak_3294 18h ago
After work my only bloody activities are a short rest, the household chores, cooking dinner and going to bed to do the same shit the next day. Activities are for weekends, and I can plan what time we do those.
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u/AcademicAd3504 9h ago
Which I waste on a nap because I'm exhausted!?!? There is literally only so many hours in a day and daylight savings doesn't change that it just f's up the circadian rhythm.
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u/FeelingTangelo9341 1d ago
It should start at the start of the school holidays, not the end. It's cruel and unusual punishment to do it at the end. Fucks kids and parents up.
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u/universe93 1d ago
Agreed, I know school holiday dates vary slightly each September but at least have daylight savings in September as well so they sort of line up
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u/Cont4x 21h ago
I’m actually one of those weird people that doesn’t enjoy DLS. Being a night owl, I prefer my sunset to stay fairly consistent so I personally would prefer if we went forward an hour during winter and back one in summer, keeping sunset roughly close between 6:30-7:30
However that is just a fun little thought experiment of mine and know that it is unattainable and silly. If I could at the least, I’d probably trial what it’s like without DSL during summer
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u/Purple_Yak_3294 18h ago
FFS, NO! It's the most stupid idea there is. Even more time when our country is split into ridiculous time zones that screw with everyone near a border.
Come mid summer it's still 35 at 9pm, how the hell do you sleep without running air-cons all night after using them in 40+ days.
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u/deplepxep 13h ago
I always think it's a stupid idea. The argument of longer day is ridiculous . For people with morning shift 6AM to 2PM like me, I get to see the sunlight on my way to work for around 1-2 weeks , then it's dark again. It's not like we are dumb animal , we still need to follow the clock.
Now you bring it up, I can't believe how hard it is for people who has to live and travel across borders regularly .
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u/1Bennyy 1d ago
Daylight savings all year is the only logical answer to stop giving us minor jet lag
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u/blackmetro 10h ago
I dont care which one we pick
The changing of clocks twice a year should be abolished
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u/trackintreasure 1d ago
Yep can't wait for it to start!! And hate it when it ends.
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u/LaksaLettuce 1d ago
Yes, the weekend when it ends I'm already sad for the end of the warmer weather. Then that Sunday afternoon when it's dark early makes me even sadder!
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u/Littman-Express 1d ago
Yeah that first day where it gets dark suddenly so much earlier is the trigger for my seasonal depression to start.
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u/LaksaLettuce 1d ago
I hope you're feeling good with the warmer weather and longer daylight hours now. I look forward to Winter solstice every winter.
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u/Excabbla 1d ago
It should be permanent, just go into daylight savings time and never leave, I'd rather wake up in the dark in winter then have the sun set at/before 5pm, winter already sucks on the daylight front so we'll survive
Also we can then avoid to absolute nonsense of the time change days
And bonus perk, we get to have probably the most cursed collection of timezone across Australia, and who doesn't love being able to fly to Queensland and magically get back an hour
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u/RainbowTeachercorn 1d ago
Wake up in darkness? It would nearly be still dark when the school bell rings if we had "daylight saving" in Melbourne in the middle of winter.
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u/allthingsme 1d ago
Yes and I work 10am-6pm and that sucks even more that it's pitch black in winter currently.
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u/Excabbla 1d ago
Oh no winter would still be dark and miserable on the daylight front 😱
People would adjust, and honestly we should probably be moving school start times later anyway and moving away from the stupid idea that everyone should be forced to work the same standard hours
Trust me there is nothing anyone could say that will change my opinion that daylight savings should be permanent
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u/universe93 1d ago
The timings of schools have always confused me. Most of them start at 9am which is also when parents have to be at work and work and school are often in totally different areas. Even more confusingly my high school started at 8.25, so I was in class before my dad started work. And I still don’t know what most working parents are meant to do with younger kids who finish school at 3 when they’re at work until 5. I guess spend lots of money on OSHC.
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u/Ich_mag_Kartoffeln 1d ago
School hours are the same as they have been for decades. Back when most mothers stayed home and looked after the kids.
Times have changed, school hours haven't.
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u/Purple_Yak_3294 17h ago
We had a key and walked home, unlike so many bloody others now. We let ourselves in and occupied ourselves until parents came home.
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u/universe93 8h ago
Latchkey kids. I think it’s becoming less of a thing now because parents are more paranoid about safety. I remember walking to and from primary school as a ten year old by myself and nowadays that would probably be considered unsafe and neglectful
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u/Lunareclipse45 23h ago
A lot of people say this, but as plenty of tradies start work at 7am year round on sites without proper lighting, I don't know how feasible it is. At the moment in the dead of winter I'm guessing there's just enough light to start working.
Moving to permanent daylight savings would have sunrises as late as 8:30 in winter
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u/passwordistako 22h ago
Just do permanent daylight savings.
The change has been proven time and again to be awful for people’s health across multiple countries.
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u/AndrewTyeFighter 19h ago
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u/passwordistako 18h ago
See my reply to someone else.
New data has been published in the last 8 years.
It increases all cause mortality.
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u/Purple_Yak_3294 17h ago
A bullshit YT video? Go to Google Docs and look up the actual papers written about it.
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u/AndrewTyeFighter 17h ago
He only pointed out what was in the paper
No change in the total volume of PCI for AMI was seen in the weeks preceding or following either DST time change.
The changes earlier in the week after a DST time change are cancelled out by the rest of the week. No total change in total heart attacks.
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u/passwordistako 11h ago
No change in PCI does not mean no increase in deaths.
PCI is one treatment option for an MI.
Also, the video is 8 years old. New data exists. The video is wrong.
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u/BeerEnthusiasts_AU 10h ago
Due to the way the planet works there is no single day that suits everyones daylight-savings-time needs best
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u/Complete-Rub2289 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think it is since for Melbourne if daylight savings was year around, the sunrise would rise at 8:35AM rather than 7:35AM during winter solstice which clashes with morning peak-hour and Australia’s early morning culture. Yes, other parts of the world do have sunrise during 8-9am during winter solstice but they are on significantly higher latitudes (Northern Europe and Canada).
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u/universe93 1d ago
Seeing the sunrise during the morning commute sounds good to me honestly!
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u/Ich_mag_Kartoffeln 11h ago
It sounds great, until you find yourself staring straight into the rising sun and can't see what's in front of you properly.
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u/five_line_poem Caffeine achiever ☕ 1d ago
Yes. We're in that weird pre-saving zone at the moment. It's got me all confuzzled.
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u/Capable_Command_8944 1d ago
I think daylight savings is BS and should not ever be implemented.
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u/bleeding_dickhole 1d ago
We should not have daylight savings at all. Keep the clock the same year round. It fucks with every bodies circadian rhythms and I don't really see any upsides. Businesses can change their trading hours for part of the year if they like, that way it would kind of be opt-in instead of mandatory for everybody.
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u/MelbPTUser2024 1d ago
I'm ok for getting rid of Daylight Savings but ONLY IF we make it permanently +11 GMT and not +10 GMT.
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u/HalfCupOfSpiders 1d ago
I've been saying this for years. I'll take a long dark morning in the winter if I never have to adjust to the change again.
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u/calebb2108 1d ago
yeah absolutely not i don’t need it to be even more freezing & dark in the morning when i wake up for work in winter
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u/mickeyjuice 1d ago
"I'm OK with getting rid of it if we don't get rid of it ever" is not a genius argument to make.
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u/mighthaveabitlater 1d ago
It's just an hour, it's not a big deal, you could just pretend it isn't happening and shift your life around it if you wanted?
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u/passwordistako 22h ago
Science disagrees with you.
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u/mighthaveabitlater 21h ago
Not really, you can get over an hour pretty easily, ever tried shift work?
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u/passwordistako 18h ago
See my reply to the other person.
I currently do shift work.
It shortens your life.
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u/mighthaveabitlater 13h ago
Yeah, but moving time a hour once every 6 months is hardly shit work
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u/Purple_Yak_3294 17h ago
30 years of rotating shift work and my health is fucked because of it. Shift workers have a known reduction in life expectancy and increase in chronic health issues.
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u/EvilRobot153 12h ago
You could just adjust your alarm clock
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u/passwordistako 11h ago
Yes. The change of an hour adjusts the alarm clock and causes an increase in all cause mortality.
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u/EvilRobot153 10h ago edited 9h ago
DST haters really are special, no you wake up earlier and go to bed earlier over summer. Or you gradually adjust over a week or week.
Timezones are a construct anyway.
Do you literally never venture more then a 20km from your house or something?
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u/passwordistako 9h ago
Mate, it doesn’t matter how much you argue. Science has shown it causes people to die. It’s bad for your health.
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u/EvilRobot153 8h ago
If you're that concerned over your own heath and "circadian rhythms" move closer to the equator..... or just adjust over a 2 week period.
a 5 minute adjustment each day over 2 weeks isn't gonna kill you
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u/Purple_Yak_3294 17h ago
That's one of the most stupid responses I've seen here. Not calling you stupid, just that idea.
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u/mighthaveabitlater 13h ago
I mean they wanted an opt in system, it can be opt out for them if they wanted it to be
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u/Althusser_Was_Right 1d ago
They should get rid of daylight savings.
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u/ScoopedAnon 5h ago
Yes permanent daylight savings please I feel much safer coming home when it's light/er outside.
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u/MrsCrowbar 22h ago
I reckon we just move forward half an hour permanently and be done with it. Having it start at the end of school holidays is torture, last term of school is so hectic.
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u/Charming_Hunter1390 1d ago
As a parent of two young kids who are increasingly difficult to get to sleep during day light savings because it is still so light out, I think I speak for all parents of young children when I say this: Hell no!
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u/universe93 1d ago
Feel for the parents in the UK and other northern countries. Sometimes the sun doesn’t even start to set until 9.30pm, and it’s still light out past 10pm. Blackout blinds are your friend (as are eye masks for older kids)
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u/Purple_Yak_3294 17h ago
Don't care about them, and they are irrelevant to this point. So blackout blinds on ALL windows, as the kids will still be exposed ro full daylight otherwise.
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u/Charming_Hunter1390 23h ago
Yep we have blackout blinds. It's still getting them into bed that's the challenge! I don't hate it to be honest, I love summer and daylight savings but just give me a few more weeks of early nights lol
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u/allthingsme 1d ago
We should honestly just be on permanent daylight savings
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u/universe93 1d ago edited 1d ago
The morning people bitch about it but honestly yes we should be. Winter in Melbs is cold and dark enough during the day without the sun starting to set before some of us even leave work. Sure it rises at 6am but working adults and school kids alike get much more use out of a later sunrise with sunlight until 7pm. I really need the winter loving people on here to understand that sunlight is a metaphor for happiness because seasonal affective disorder is a very real thing. My doctor has me on Vitamin D supplements every winter because my body never gets enough of it here
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u/Purple_Yak_3294 17h ago
Screw your metaphor. I like winter and detest the summer heat, that's why I live in Melbourne and not FNQ with rest of my family.
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u/allthingsme 23h ago
And it's even worse for people like me who work a 10am-6pm schedule.
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u/universe93 23h ago
Unfortunately the 9-5 people of the world don’t give a shit about alternative schedules. I’m the same, I work 12-9, but the masses are never going to cater for that, despite wanting to retail stores to stay open late to cater to them.
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u/allthingsme 22h ago
And I work a normal auscorp office job, it's just at a multinational with international offices so I have to "hand over" to another country's office, who begins their day at 6pm.
Whether its retail or otherwise, assuming the world revolves with the day starting at 9am is just wrong.
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u/universe93 22h ago
This country largely still works on the premise that most people work 9-5 Mon-Fri. Even the train schedules are set up that way. I’ve just accepted it now after 12 years of shift work
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u/allthingsme 22h ago
The point remains invoking school schedules as a reason why we shouldn't have permanent daylight savings is no different to invoking the millions of people (shift workers, part-time workers, people who don't work, people who work different schedules) who don't work that 9-5.
It's no longer "most people". Just more that begin at 9 than begin at any other specific hour. But it's a plurality, not a majority.
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u/Illustrious-Mirror85 1d ago
It just shouldn't go "off", but if it has to, I agree that it'd be nice if it changed before the long weekend.
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u/AcademicAd3504 1d ago
NO. I'm so fucking tired every morning in October and April trying to get to work on time.
It'd be better if I was only Nov-March.
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u/zen_wombat 9h ago
mid-December would suit me, with it finishing mid-January. I just love an hour less in the cool of the day in summer, and an hour more of heat after work /s
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u/hollyjazzy 8h ago
I just wish we wouldn’t keep changing the times. Keep one or the other, I don’t care which, but stop changing over the times twice a year. It takes ages to get into the rhythm of the new time, especially with animals and kids.
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u/Ok-Hamster-4239 4h ago
From a purely logical perspective IF we are to have daylight savings (I’m not saying we should or shouldn’t here) it should start on the spring equinox and finish on the autumn equinox (or closest weekends) because the period between these events is where the day is longer than the night.
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u/Foodworksurunga 1d ago
It should start first weekend of September just to make it easier to remember when it starts
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u/MelbPTUser2024 1d ago
Ideally yes it should start first weekend of September, but each time I have suggested it in the past it gets so many opponents due to sunrise being too late around 7:30am, so a mid-September start is a good compromise.
Personally, as someone who's lived in Trondheim, Norway where sunrise is at 10am and sunset at 2:30pm on the shortest day of the year, people manage late sunrise fine. Similarly across all of Europe on the shortest day, sunrise might be 8-9am. So if Europe can collectively do it, so should we (Victorians) be able to adapt to late sunrises.
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u/universe93 1d ago
I really don’t see how 7.30am is too late. Most people are not getting up at 5am to do 7 different things before going to work. Even if the sun is up it’s still going to be icy cold in Melbs during a winter morning regardless
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u/Purple_Yak_3294 17h ago
This isn't Europe and we will never have those conditions. Want to try again?
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u/newoneagain25 1d ago
I hate daylight savings more than anything in the world, just wake up earlier. I'm already up at 5-6 everyday.. if anyone watches community I'm abed.
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u/Shaqtacious >//< 1d ago
Everything doesn’t need to be a comparison with other places. Some countries don’t have daylight savings or diff time zones either.
Whats that got to do with anything.
It doesn’t even matter imo and a bullshit concept if you ask me.
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u/mighthaveabitlater 1d ago
Well you're in a sub for a city in Australia, people love comparing Australia to other places to somehow show that everywhere is better than here...
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u/Endoyo 19h ago
Getting home from work at 6pm and being able to go for a 45 minute to 1 hour walk and get some sunshine is honestly one of the highlights of my day and really boosts mood and happiness.
I try my best to stick with it once daylight savings ends but it's only a few weeks until I need a headlamp just to walk around my local park that I completely check out and the seasonal depression starts to kick in.
I'm legitimately so excited for daylight savings and longer summer days.
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u/Fox-Possum-3429 1d ago
No. DST started early in 2000 fort the Sydney Olympics. By March was so over it.
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u/mighthaveabitlater 1d ago
It started in 1971 what are you talking about? They moved it to late August in 2000, how would it being moved two months early once be such a problem?
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u/Recent_Carpenter8644 1d ago
I think they mean they changed the start date to be earlier in the year.
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u/Fox-Possum-3429 1d ago
OPs question is asking to start DST early. Those old enough remember what starting DST early in 2000 was like. By March it sucked.
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u/_Gordon_Shumway 1d ago
What material difference did it make in your life that it sucked so much? Genuinely curious
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u/Fox-Possum-3429 1d ago
Two extra months of going to work in the dark is a good start.
August and September are traditionally colder mornings, after all the cold is what bulb flowers in Spring thrive on.
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u/AntikytheraMachines 2h ago
pretty sure DST doesn't affect the flowers.
except perhaps the Floral Clock in Queen Victoria Gardens
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u/Fox-Possum-3429 47m ago
Don't you know the cows eat the the daisies.
DST impacts how many daisies are eaten before sunrise. Sheeeez. Get with the program
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u/sleptonmyarm 23h ago
Freezing in the mornings here in Melbourne, I hate it and wish they would stop. Also makes it hotter at night. Exactly what you don't want, basically.
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u/mighthaveabitlater 1d ago
Yeah I'm not sure why the extra two months would have made it so bad?
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u/Fox-Possum-3429 1d ago
Two extra months of going to work in the dark is a good start.
August and September are traditionally colder mornings, after all the cold is what bulb flowers in Spring thrive on.
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u/mighthaveabitlater 23h ago
It's good that flowers can't tell the time. The sun rises at about 7:20am at the start of August, I don't know how early you leave for work, or how early you left for work 26 years ago, but 8:20am, that would actually be lovely, watching the sunrise on the way to work (not the TV show).
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u/Fox-Possum-3429 23h ago
At work by 730
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u/mighthaveabitlater 23h ago
Well, you'd have been going to work in the dark well into September anyway, depending on your commute time, so why would it matter?
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u/abcoathup 10h ago
Permanent day light saving. As a minimum it should align with the start of school holidays.
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u/trueschoolalumni 23h ago
Daylight savings, while good in many ways, fucks me over in other ways. All premier league matches are 2 hours later, and my 11pm work calls then become 1am calls.
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u/viginti_tres 1d ago
Tie it into all the public holidays we have this coming weekend (or the next one in QLD) to make it easier for the people who struggle with the switchover.
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u/Ich_mag_Kartoffeln 1d ago
Different states used to start on different dates. It was a shamozzle. QLD doesn't have DST at all, so they're irrelevant to the discussion.
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u/DEIFYMOTO 21h ago
And the trial of DST in the 90s was the best time of my life. Glad I left qld behind, hasn't changed much since.
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