Over a billion more dark-morning school commutes for K-12 children under the Sunshine Protection Act.

Permanent daylight saving time would add more than 2 billion dark-morning school commutes yearly for K-12 children across the US, based on real start times and sunrise data.

• Why it matters: The debate over permanent DST versus standard time has safety consequences that were previously unquantified, especially for children whose schedules conflict with biological rhythms.
• What they did: Using real school start times for 14 states with approved permanent DST and local sunrise times, the study counted pre-sunrise departures under each clock regime, then scaled nationwide.
• The result: In a decade of US fatal crash records, dark-morning crashes had higher odds of pedestrian involvement (OR 1.77), and this was higher for pedestrians aged 5–18 (OR 2.22).

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.