Do not change the time again
In 2015, the then Government made a bold move by observing Daylight Savings Time on a permanent basis. However, in 2018, the Government reversed the decision of previous Government and reinstated the changing of clocks twice a year. The Government at that time indicated that the based on a survey, (as far as I know the results of the survey were not released), the majority of people wanted the reversal of the Atlantic Standard Time saying that the people were concerned about their safety particularly early in the morning when it was very dark.
Well, this article is to encourage the Government of the Turks and Caicos Islands to make Daylight Savings Time on a permanent basis again. Ironically, the US Senate has passed legislation to make Daylight Savings Time permanent.
Why Daylight Savings should be permanent?
Like most Caribbean countries, our main industry is tourism. A permanent daylight savings time means that the afternoons are longer and if the afternoons are longer, this will be conducive to many tourism activities and thus our businesses will have an opportunity to make more money. This is possible because businesses will have their businesses open longer and of course the longer they opened, the more time they have to earn additional revenue.
One argument that many people use is that daylight savings time will allow consumers to save energy as people will spend more time on the outside and therefore less need to use electricity, at least for an additional hour.
Another argument that many people believe is that daylight savings will reduce crime. I am not sure what statistics are there to prove this but many people believe that individuals will have a chance to do at a lot during the day thus not having to be out in the dark when a lot of crime takes place. Of course, others can counterargue that crime can take place any time of the day but the truth is most crimes do take place at nights.
Change the start time for school and work
As mentioned in the introduction, there were concerns about the safety of individuals particularly children who were waiting in the dark morning to catch the bus to schools. I believe this was a genuine concern for parents but I think this issue can be easily resolved if the start time for schools are changed from 8am to 9am or from 8:30 am to 9:30am.
Another thing we can do to ensure safety of students at the bus stops, is that Police Department can ensure that police officers are stationed at the bus stops until the children get on the bus.
This may not only be a concern for parents, but this may be a concern for employees. Again if this is a genuine concern, employers can change the start time for work an hour later.
Conclusion
I know some of us do not like change but sometimes change is necessary in order for a change to take place. Many countries throughout the world are changing to one time zone. We did it before and we can do it again. We just need to be bold and whatever concerns people have about safety can be addressed.