If you're asking, "When do I turn my clocks back?", it's that time of the year when you turn clocks back one hour, but apparently not everyone is prepared to do the right thing.
Daylight Saving Time (sometimes called Daylight Savings Time) is set to begin at 2 a.m. on Sunday November 6, 2011. This means the daylight will begin earlier in the morning and the sun will set earlier in the evening.
It's also a good time to check the batteries in your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
"We all enjoy that extra hour of sleep as we turn back the clocks on Sunday," said Acting State Fire Administrator Bryant D. Stevens, "but knowing that you have a working smoke alarm could help you sleep a little better and, more importantly, ensure that you wake up if a fire occurs."
Working smoke alarms are essential in saving lives from fire. "You may have as little as three minutes to get out of your home or apartment before a fire becomes deadly," said Stevens.
Working smoke alarms provide early warning of a fire and can provide extra time to escape safely. However, smoke alarms may not do their job if homeowners and renters don't test them regularly to make sure that they are working.
From 2005-2009, approximately two-thirds of home fire deaths resulted from fires in properties without working smoke alarms, according to a report by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) titled "Smoke Alarms in U.S. Home Fires." Many fire departments throughout New York State continue to respond to calls in homes each year where there is no working smoke alarm present.
Also check the clocks in your computers, DVD players and microwaves in case they don't automatically adjust the time.
Why does the clock change when it does? According to a Daylight Savings Time Website, it was originally chosen because it minimized disruption by not preventing the day from switching to yesterday, which would be confusing. It is also early enough for the continental U.S. to switch by daybreak.
One of the biggest reasons for Daylight Saving Time is that it reportedly saves electricity. Studies are still being conducted to see if that long-held belief is true.
The State of California says that time zones were first used by the railroads in 1993 to standardize their schedules. In 1918, the U.S. Congress made the U.S. rail zones official under federal law.
The American law by which we turn our clock forward in the spring and back in the fall is known as the Uniform Time Act of 1966. The law does not require that anyone observe Daylight Saving Time; all the law says is that if we are going to observe Daylight Saving Time, it must be done uniformly.
WHICH WAY DO YOU TURN CLOCKS?
Apparently, some people get confused about Daylight Savings Time.
11 percent of the respondents of a 2010 survey said they were going to move their clocks forward for the end of Daylight Saving Time last November. Another five percent weren't sure which way they were going to turn their clock.
They apparently can't remember the "Spring Forward... Fall Behind" rule of clock setting.
The results came from a Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 adults.
Another finding from the survey showed that 27 percent of the respondents had arrived late or early somewhere because they didn't change their clocks at the start or end of DST.
And less than half of the people surveyed felt like Daylight Saving Time was worth the hassle of changing clocks.
Arizona, Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands don't observe daylight time.
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