“Americans really do leave their homes when there is more sunlight at the end of the day,” said Michael Downing, a lecturer at Tufts University
and the author of “Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time.”
“We go to the parks, and we go to the mall, but we don’t walk there,” he said.
“For most people, an extra hour of daylight in the evening after work or after school is much more usable
than the hour of daylight in the morning,” said David Prerau, the author of “Seize the Daylight.”
But since the idea was put in place, it has faced detractors and debate.
In 2010, Jeff Miller, the group’s chairman at the time, said the industry had added an estimated $1
billion in annual sales since the organization lobbied to add a month to daylight saving in 1986.
A Department of Energy report from 2008 found that the extended daylight saving time
put in place in 2005 saved about 0.5 percent in total electricity use per day.
“Daylight saving increases gasoline consumption.”
No one is more aware of that than gas stations, which is why the Association for Convenience
and Fuel Retailing, a lobbying group for convenience stores, has pushed to start daylight saving time earlier in the year.
