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In the United States, Daylight Savings Time (DST) 2014 is on Sunday, March Nine and in most European countries on March 30.
In Costa Rica, Daylight Savings Time was used for the first time in the summer of 1979, once in 1980 (from February until May), and in 1991 from January until June. The last time DST was used during the Calderon Government was in 1992 from January until March.
In Costa Rica, life starts a lot earlier than in most countries in the northern hemisphere. Constructions, factories, and public schools start at 7:00 am and most offices start at 7:30 or 8:00 am. You will find a bustling activity anywhere in Costa Rica at 6:00 am, something that takes a while to get used to. All that early activity does make a lot of sense because daylight in Costa Rica starts at 6:00 am and it is generally dark by 5:30 pm.
To move the clock forward one hour in Costa Rica means that schools would have to start at 6:00 am so kids would have to go to school in the dark. I remember that was the main complaint, everyone, during that last daylight savings. Besides the fact that nobody ever set their watches to the daylight savings time, so they would always keep an eye on the Central Standard Time and not on DST. It would just give them an additional excuse for being late because they would still be on the old clock. I suppose that’s where the word Tico Time came from.
Nonetheless, if you live in Costa Rica and you have family abroad, you need to remember that they will forward their clock one hour. When you are used to calling them late at night, they might already be asleep and they won’t be happy if you wake them up.
Daylight Saving Time is often referred to as Summer Time is a way of making better use of the daylight in the evenings by setting the clocks forward one hour during the longer days of summer, and back again in the fall. People believe that Daylight Savings Time could be linked to fewer road accidents, to save energy and reduce artificial light needed during the evening hours and the extra hour of daylight in the evening is supposed to give children more social time and can boost the tourism industry because it increases the number of outdoor activities.
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