Permanent daylight saving time could leave students commuting in the dark, data shows Nineteen states and those who wish our clocks didn’t “fall back” in November may have seen the light at the end of the tunnel after the House passed a President Trump-backed bill to make daylight saving time permanent earlier this year.

Any hopes of being able to leave the clocks as they are in the early hours of November may have only been dashed after the Senate adjourned without taking any action on the Sunshine Protection Act.

Some anger may have been passed off to Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), who has frequently spoken out against the bill, after President Trump shared his cellphone number online and told people to tell Cotton “it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN.”Cotton, however, responded by reiterating his stance that “no one likes changing the clock, me included,” while pointing to previous less-than-successful efforts by the U.S. to observe permanent daylight saving time.

“Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I’ll always put Arkansas first,” Cotton wrote on But just how dark would it be when your kids head off to school? It depends on where you live.

Generally speaking, in the U.S., most to all sunrises from early November to early-to-mid March — the time in which we observe standard time currently — happen somewhere in the 6 or 7 o’clock hours There are outliers, especially further north. In Lansing, Michigan, for example, more than 40 of the 133 sunrises between the clocks changing will happen after 8 a.m.

If we, instead, observed daylight saving time year-round, those sunrises would shift an hour later. Lansing would see 129 sunrises after 8 a.m., and 43 would happen after 9 a.m.

Your child, of course, doesn’t have to go to school all of the 133 days between our clocks falling back to standard time and springing forward to daylight saving time. So how many days would they actually be commuting “in the pitch dark?”When would your kids commute in the dark?

Let’s say, for example, your child has to leave for school at 7 a.m. We’ll also assume your child has 85 days of school between the clocks changing in November and March, removing weekends and major holidays (Thanksgiving and Black Friday, plus the several days from Christmas Eve to the first Monday after New Year’s Day) from the tally above.

Nexstar tallied the sunrise times for 62 U.S. cities across the 85 typical school days between November and March.

At present, on average, a child matching the above example leaves for school before the sun rises about 50 times. The other 35 days, the sun comes up before the child leaves at 7 a.m.

If we began observing year-round daylight saving time, only two cities would have at least two school day sunrises before 7 a.m.: Las Vegas (two) and Panama City, Florida (six). In other communities, several sunrises wouldn't happen until after 8 a.m., Nexstar found.

The interactive table below shows how many sunrises happen before 7 a.m. on traditional school days now. Since only two cities analyzed would see any sunrises before 7 a.m., the second column shows how many school-day sunrises would happen after 8 a.m. if daylight saving time became permanent.

There are limitations and caveats to the data above. It doesn’t take into account additional days off your child may have, for example, or if they have to leave home before or after 7 a.m. Regardless, history may be on Cotton’s side.

Why daylight saving time failed before The U.S. briefly observed permanent daylight saving time in 1973 ( among other times in the 1900s ). It was highly regarded at first, with a nearly 80% approval rate in December of that year, The New York Times reported. Two months later, that had dropped to 42%.

The discontent, at least in part, appeared to be fueled by parents sending their children to school in the dark, armed with flashlights and prompting safety concerns. There were multiple incidents nationwide of children being struck by vehicles while on their way to school, including eight fatalities in Florida The U.S. would return to seasonal clock changes by fall of 1974.

The U.S. Department of Transportation, meanwhile, found no clear evidence regarding traffic accidents in relation to year-round daylight saving time. It also determined that energy savings, another purported benefit of locking the clocks that Trump has touted were a meager 0.4% to 1.5%. What’s next for daylight saving time?

It’s difficult to say. The Senate could take up the Sunshine Protection Act when they return in mid-November, though Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) recently said there is "no clear path forward" for the legislation. Plus, the current Congress is only expected to remain in session through about mid- to late December.

Congress is also considering bills in the House that would give states the option to observe year-round daylight saving time, a bill to make half-daylight saving time permanent and a newly introduced bill to make standard time permanent with exceptions.

For now, though, our clocks appear likely to "fall back" to standard time in the early morning hours of Nov. 1.