Today, I had a bit of driving to do and was busy listening to sports talk radio in the car, as is my typical custom when driving alone.  A Radio Shack commercial came on, and reminded every listener on November 4th to move their clocks back by an hour, as daylight saving time is coming to an end.  The commercial also reminded folks to change the batteries in their smoke detectors.  Apparently, this public service ad will help Radio Shack sell more batteries. 

Unfortunately, the good suggestion of changing your smoke alarm batteries is grossly overshadowed by the very bad suggestion of moving your clocks on November 4th, since the vast majority of Arizonans do not adjust their clocks for daylight saving time.  We’re on Mountain Standard Time year round.  A person that recently moved into Arizona might not be aware of that, and could inadvertently move their clock back this Sunday.  I sure hope that doesn’t happen often, but I bet it happens to someone.  Probably fewer residents in Arizona accidentally move their clocks back, as forget to move their clocks elsewhere, but if they listened to Radio Shack commercials, could you blame them?

Ok, so now we all know Arizona stays on Mountain Standard time year round.  (I’m going to go off on a tangent a bit and say that Arizona never goes on California time, as many Californian’s like to say.  Instead, Pacific Daylight Saving Time is the same as Mountain Standard time.)  But why doesn’t Arizona observe daylight saving time?  I had heard the reason long ago, but had forgotten.  Instead, I used to tell people we don’t need to save any time.  We’ve got plenty. 

My outrage over the poor advice from the radio ad caused me to look it up today and get my facts straight.  The real reason Arizona (by and large…the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona does observe daylight saving time) does not observe daylight saving time, should be obvious: it’s hot here.  During much of daylight saving time, most of Arizona’s population faces average daytime temperatures above 100 degrees.  And what does daylight saving time do?  It gives us more daylight at night time.  Which means it doesn’t start to cool off until even later in the evening.  Families didn’t like the idea of waiting until after 9pm to finally be able to tolerate the heat outside, or get their kids to begin to think about going to bed inside, so in 1968, after the US had enacted the Uniform Time Act, Arizona laws were written to reject the adoption of daylight saving time.

Arizona doesn’t observe daylight saving time, so that we can get out and enjoy at least a little bit of time in a more tolerable temperature during the heat of the summer before it’s hopelessly past our bedtimes.  My personal favorite ways to use this unsaved time is by mountain biking (with lights) and playing softball.  And there are at least a few people that enjoy taking in a drive-in movie in Scottsdale and Glendale.

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