Customs: Running to Daylight

Last year only 19 states observed Daylight Saving Time on a statewide basis, while 17 others practiced local op- tion and 14 stayed on Standard Time the year round. The result was a chaos of conflicting time patterns. This year was supposed to be different. Reason:

the Uniform Time Act, passed by Congress a year ago, that requires all states to follow statewide Daylight Time—unless the respective legislatures enact exempting laws. Last week as the hour struck to turn the clocks ahead one hour, the chaos was less, but compliance was far from perfect. Forty-five states are now keeping D.S.T.; still out of step are Alaska, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan.

The new Department of Transportation, which administers the act, is allowing Alaska and Hawaii to stay Standard until it fixes new Pacific time-zone boundaries. More confused are states that are split into two time zones. Indiana has asked D.O.T. to revise the boundaries so that the entire state falls in the Central Time zone; meanwhile, eastern Indiana will remain on Eastern Standard and thus keep the same time as the western portion, which is on Central Daylight all year long. Parts of Nebraska and Kansas in the Mountain Time zone will keep Central Daylight while their requests for revised boundaries are pending; similarly, parts of North Dakota and El Paso in the Central zone are observing Mountain Daylight. Michigan, which passed exempting legislation, has asked D.O.T. to revise its boundaries so that it falls entirely in the Eastern zone. The ultimate in confusion is Kentucky; there local option prevails, and the state must therefore cope simultaneously with four different times.