Daylight saving time: Politician brings in bill to make time permanent because she’s fed up with changing clocks

Senator Betty Olson is 'darn sick' of adjusting her life in March and November

A politician in South Dakota is so fed up of changing her clock and adjusting her life, she wants to make daylight saving time permenant (JEFF PACHOUD/AFP/Getty Images)

A petition to make daylight saving time permanent in South Dakota is one step closer to becoming law after the politician who proposed it said she was "sick" of changing her clocks.

Senator Betty Olson’s bill, which the South Dakota Senate’s Commerce and Energy Committee voted 5-2 to send to the full Senate for debate on Tuesday, “elects to reject standard time”.

Ms Olson says she, along with her neighbours, are “darn sick” of changing the time of their clocks and adjusting to the change, which happens twice a year in March and November.

And while she said she likes using standard time, her husband prefers using daylight saving time - so she went with that as a compromise in the bill, Keloland Television reported.

Republican senator Brock Greenfield, who co-sponsored the petition, said “times have changed" since daylight savings was introduced.

He told Dakota Broadcasting he feels South Dakotans are tired of changing clocks each year and as a society have "passed this tradition".

He added he "didn’t see the harm" in more discussion on the matter.

If passed, South Dakota would join Arizona and Hawaii, which are currently the only states that no longer change clocks twice a year. They operate on standard time all year round.

Daylight saving time was first introduced in America in 1918, in a bid to support the war effort during World War 1, by President Woodrow Wilson.

The idea was encouraged to be used in America by Robert Garland, often called the “father of Daylight Saving”, following its success in the UK.

Additional reporting by Associated Press