By the early 1960s, no one was in charge of the nation's clocks. Interstate commerce, communication, and travel were as discombobulated as they had been prior to the imposition of Railroad Time in 1883. The short trip from Steubensville, Ohio, to Moundsville, West Virginia, became a symbol of the deteriorating situation. A bus ride down this thirty-five mile stretch of highway took less than an hour. But along that route, the local time changed seven times.
The $22 billion sporting goods industry was looking forward to a $20 million annual boost in the sale of tennis rackets and balls, a 30 percent increase in the number of youth soccer games played, and at least a 4 percent increase in sales of inflatable products. The National Golf Association anticipated a $46 million rise in sales of clubs and balls... Every hour of additional afternoon daylight was a retail bonanza.
As the millennium approached, legislators in Massachusetts, Louisiana, Nevada and California introduced bills calling for year-round Daylight Saving... Representative Brad Sherman confidently predicted that double Daylight Saving would reduce total energy consumption on the West Coast by an additional 1 percent, though there we no known American data about a second hour of Daylight Saving. And no one had absolutely established an actual saving with even one hour of Daylight.
To this day, Daylight Saving accrues dubious credit for fossil-fuel savings and dubious blame for school bus accidents; it is seasonally cited as a contributing factor in the ups and downs of the Dow Jones and the Nielsen ratings.