This weekend we’ll set our clocks back one hour to begin standard time. A recent poll shows that more North Carolinians favor year-round daylight saving time.
In the High Point University poll, 40 percent of respondents preferred switching to more evening daylight year-round. Eighteen percent favored a change to permanent standard time with an earlier sunrise and less evening light. Roughly one third of those polled were in favor of maintaining the status quo.
The benefits of more evening sunlight include extra time for outdoor activity and safer rides home from work. But prolonged darkness in the morning can create driving hazards for commuters.
Those against the annual spring-forward, fall-back time changes argue that they can disrupt our internal biological clock, making it more difficult to wake up in the morning and affecting our ability to concentrate.
Daylight-saving time ends — and standard time begins — at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 1, when clocks will fall back one hour to 1 a.m.