As if the last few days haven’t been gloomy enough, now comes the dreaded “fall back” as daylight saving time comes to an end at 2 a.m. Sunday.
As always, you’ll be getting an extra hour of sleep overnight — but the tradeoff is that sunsets will now happen as early as 4 p.m.
In 2019, state lawmakers voted to do away with the yearly practice, and Gov. Jay Inslee signed the legislation. Despite those efforts, Washington still needs congressional approval to adopt daylight saving measures.
So far, no deal has been reached.
Ahead of the darker times, state troopers say they have no doubt that there will be an increase in accidents on our roadways.
“In essence, they’re going to be traveling in rush hour in dusk or dark or dawn, so it’s not going to be daylight like this, and we’re going to get rain, possibly snow,” said Washington State Patrol Trooper Rick Johnson. “The concern is just more collisions.”
Washington is in good company in its efforts to do away with falling back. Currently, 19 other states have legislation that would end the process of the time change.