Time Changes
Spring ahead, Fall back. That’s how we’ve always remembered the method of changing clocks. Daylight Savings starts in the spring and ends in the fall, this year on October 27th in Puerto Vallarta.
A little known fact about Daylight Savings Time or DST, is that Canada was a leader in this time-change trend. Austria and Germany were the first to employ DST in Europe in 1916, but in 1908, Port Arthur, Ontario, which is now Thunder Bay, began to turn their clocks forward by one hour on July 1st of that year. It didn’t take long before it had spread across the northern part of the continent.
Two years into World War I, on April of 1916, clocks were turned ahead in Germany and Austria by one hour in a rationalization to minimize the use of electric and gas lighting. Saving fuel in the war effort was extremely important. England, France and other countries followed suit, but most turned back to standard time after the war. World War II brought DST back to Europe.
Amazingly, the original plan for setting clocks forward and back was much more complicated, and comprised of switching ahead twenty minutes on each of the four Sundays in April, and doing the same with a switch back in September. Imagine changing a total of eight times a year; what we do now seems simple.
Although the European Parliament recently voted to discontinue the use of DST, all Union members need to agree to pass it into law and that has yet to occur. It’s been a continuing discussion for several years in the United States to abolish DST. There are way too many opinions about what and how changes should be made, with states like Florida going in the opposite direction, wanting to institute it all year long. Hawaii doesn’t observe DST at all, and only a tiny slice of Arizona does.
This past summer in Washington State, a bill was signed by Governor Jay Inslee, and passed both state House and Senate to change permanently to DST but it hasn’t been instituted into law as of this date. Oregon and California followed Washington’s lead, and British Columbia, Canada is making plans to authorize the same.
Given all this, it won’t be long before Mexico makes the same decisions and we no longer have DST in Puerto Vallarta. Airlines have made it clear that it will be vital for everyone to be operating on the same clock. In the meantime, we still turn back on October 27th, 2019.
Que cómo es es.
