Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 30, 1990                   TAG: 9003300133
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

TIME NEAR FOR CLOCKS TO 'SPRING FORWARD'

That's right, it's time once again to switch to daylight-saving time.

That means moving the clock ahead one hour - you remember, "spring forward."

The change means later sunsets, so people can enjoy working on gardens or outdoor projects, playing sports, having barbecues or just idly relaxing outside.

For the record, the official change occurs at 2 a.m. Sunday, local time.

Most folks are scofflaws, though, making the change before retiring or in the morning.

The law calls for the change to be the first Sunday in April. Since Sunday is April 1 this year, the switch is as early as can be, under current rules.

While it's known as daylight-saving time, the change doesn't really save any daylight. It just moves it from morning to evening.

That means that some children wind up waiting for school buses in the dark in exchange for more time after school to play ball or join the family in backyard cookouts.

The idea has been attributed to various people, including Benjamin Franklin, but it was William Willett of England who launched the eventually successful campaign for the idea in 1907.

More time for evening recreation, less need for costly artificial lights and a possible reduction of evening crime were cited as major advantages.

It was the energy saving that prompted first use of daylight-saving time, in Germany in 1916. Other countries followed during World War I, returning to standard time afterward and resuming daylight time during World War II.

It was the confusion of a crazy-quilt pattern of time differences that finally led to the adoption of the U.S. uniform time system in 1966. Before then, local communities decided individually for or against daylight time.

Today, daylight time is in effect in all areas of the country except Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the part of Indiana in the Eastern time zone.

Surveys have found that daylight time is generally more popular in urban areas, where the afternoon and evening leisure time is appreciated.

Rural areas seem to be the focus of opposition, largely because of the loss of morning light for travel to work and school and adjusting to the change in dealing with livestock, since animals don't observe differences in clocks.

The actual effect on people seems to vary considerably by geography.

The standard time zones were set up to be about an hour wide. That means it should be the same time throughout an area covered by the apparent movement of the sun in about an hour.

But, even though the clocks display the same times, sunrise and sunset actually take place on the eastern edge of a time zone about an hour before these events arrive at the western edge of the zone.

For example, while the time is the same in Portland, Maine, and Detroit, the sun will actually rise considerably earlier in Maine.