Calls to 'lock the clock' grow after end of Daylight Saving Time

Time to lock the clock?

We all got an extra hour of sleep this morning as we turned the clocks back.

CHICAGO - Today is the first Sunday in November and the sun has set over Chicago just before 5 p.m., only hours after we all set the clocks back an hour and the time for complaining has already begun.

What we know:

"That’s just like a pain in the @#%," says Pedro Martinez, a Chilean student currently attending the University of Chicago 

Lynetta Thompson, visiting from Maryland, tells Fox 32 that while she enjoys "falling back" she doesn’t care for "springing forward" every year. 

One solution is doing away with the practice of moving the clocks biannually all together. The nation tried it under President Nixon, and it was so unpopular, we went right back to "falling back" in a matter of months. 

Scott Yates, a longtime advocate for "locking the clock", says when the country tried it in 1974, the timing could not have been worse.

"That first Monday of January, which is one of the most miserable Mondays of the world. Anyway, it was a lot darker than everybody was expecting in the morning and so everybody hated it," he said. 

Earlier this year, Yates appeared before the Senate Commerce Committee with a compromise plan: a 24-month trial period that locks the clock nationwide, allowing plenty of time to iron out the kinks. 

"There’s a lot of serious questions, what time should school open? That’s a complicated question," added Yates. 

There’s also the question of whether it's high time to spare those in the Hoosier State from sharing the same spot on the clock as those on the eastern seaboard. 

"It’s a little bit crazy that Indiana is in the same time zone as people in Massachusetts a thousand miles away," says Yates. 

Once the government shutdown is over, President Trump has said he will sign the legislation into law. If that happens, Yates believes the Land of Lincoln is ideally positioned to see an extra hour of daylight, adding he believes Daylight Saving Time would be perfect going forward.

Yates also believes that one day "falling back" and "springing forward" won’t make a lot of sense to future generations. 

"My grandkids at some point may say to me at some point, what was that weird thing you did with the clocks? That was crazy!" he said.

Until then, we’ll just have to wait until next March to enjoy an extra hour of sunshine.

For more information go to locktheclock.net.