Time wars: Answering the Chamber of Commerce types

MICHIANA POINT OF VIEW
By JOHN F. GASKI

Some "timely" suggestions for the local business community on time zone:

1.) Back off.

You wanted daylight-saving time and you got it. Now you want to cram Eastern time down the public's throat. Beware what you wish for.

If the Eastern time zone is mandated for this area, it will be very unpopular once locals experience "double fast time" next year. Have you ever noticed how, when the time non-change occurs each spring and we go back on Chicago time, it is a relief, a respite? There is a reason for that.

While on New York time, it is always an hour later than it should be per our geography. This takes a toll. Every time your alarm goes off in the morning during the New York time part of the year, think about that. Rightfully, you are entitled to another hour's sleep that day.

But don't you make it up on the other end of the day, by retiring earlier (because it is always an hour later on the clock)? Probably not, because of the television schedule, i.e., news over at 11:30 p.m., rather than 10:30 p.m. So you get it coming and going. You lose an hour's morning sleep and, at night, it is always an hour later than it should be. It is as if you are losing one or two hours per day out of your life. Not literally, but in effect you suffer that time loss when it matters most to you: during off-hours. Such is the impact of New York time (for Indiana -- how ridiculous!), and it is fatiguing for victims of this time crunch. Now, a plurality of area business people want to exacerbate the condition.

Moreover, some will recall how bad it was when Indiana tried Eastern daylight-saving time decades ago. Still light at 10 p.m. during spring and summer may not seem so bad -- until you realize it is hot at midnight! With air conditioners running all over Indiana at all hours of the night, there goes much of the purported economic benefit. It was horrible before and, as we are about to see and feel, it will be again.

Eastern Daylight-saving Time for Indiana causes thoroughly unpleasant, even grotesque, consequences. The previous time we did it, it was a farce (or it would have been retained). The reason is straightforward: Indiana lies in the extreme western part of an artificially expanded Eastern time zone. The state belongs in the Central zone. During the half year we are, in effect, on Central time, it is more natural.

So what? Here's what: The intense sentiment on this issue is mostly on the Central time-preference side, even beyond poll results showing numerical support for Central. If Eastern is imposed, there will be public resentment. (Many who think they favor the Eastern zone will change their minds after they get a taste of Eastern Daylight-saving Time.) Backlash will target those perceived as responsible, especially local business.

Do they really want to antagonize a majority of the public? Can they foresee adverse consequences accruing from provocation of their resident customers and employees?

2.) More gravely, the problem of children waiting in the dark for the morning school bus is real, and is aggravated by Eastern time. The risk would be reduced were this area on Central time during the school year, which allows earlier sunrise. Another factor is U.S. Rep. Fred Upton's bill to prolong DST, which means heightened danger to children extended into October and March, as well as the dead of winter. (No, there is no corresponding afternoon bus danger if on Central time.)

Businesses' financial concerns are trivial compared to public welfare. The first time a child is hit by a truck or abducted while waiting for the morning bus after we are placed anew in the Eastern time zone, a rather angry mob -- at least figuratively -- will be coming after those seen as culpable.

3.) Businesses may have legitimate reasons for preferring Eastern time, e.g., consistency with Michigan suppliers or customers, but the only way to solve both the northern and western border problems is to put St. Joseph County, and a few collar counties, in the Central zone. Once that is done, two or three southwest Michigan counties would have incentive to petition to make the same move. (They need our time more than we need to be on theirs.) After all, Chicago and northwest Indiana are not about to change to Eastern time. And if Eastern is so beneficial, why are LaPorte, Porter and Lake counties in Indiana and Cook County in Illinois not clamoring for it?

The premise that business volume with the Eastern time zone necessitates its adoption here has been flawed all along. Chicago firms do a larger proportion of out-of-market business in the East than South Bend area firms do -- because we have the Chicago megalopolis to our west and Chicago doesn't. If our local businesses cannot adjust to a one-hour difference, the problem clearly is not time zone. Anyway, realize that the Eastern time zone represents the past, as the U.S. business center of gravity, and economic future, move west. Renowned statistician Jeff Sagarin's Web site indicates that Indiana actually does most out-of-state business in the western time zones.

Another unrecognized aspect of this mess: The problem of national business contacts not knowing our time may not result from absence of daylight-saving time, nor our being on Central time for half the year, in effect. The real problem may be our contra-intuitive present location in the Eastern zone, while normal people elsewhere would expect us to be in Chicago's zone. Haven't they thought of that?

4.) If business interests succeed in imposing Eastern time, it will undermine their own purpose. It will ignite a time civil war around here that will only end when the Central zone is enacted, after more years of confusion. Worse, will the local county government be able to resist public demand to informally observe Central time, as Southeast Indiana does now with Eastern Daylight Time -- creating even more chaos for business suppliers and customers? Let's settle it once and for all with Central time. (If Eastern Daylight Time is so good for us, why did it quickly fail 35 or so years ago?)

For these possibly under-appreciated reasons, local business should support Central time for St. Joseph County.

John Gaski is an associate professor of marketing at the University of Notre Dame.