Early Sunday morning --2 a.m. to be exact-- while most Americans are sleeping, most of us will also be springing forward into Daylight Savings Time.

Under law, daylight saving time is observed from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November and is designed to increase the amount of evening daylight.

Federal law specifies that those areas observing the time change must use the starting and ending dates set by the law. So, if you live anywhere in the U.S. except Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Marianas, and most of Arizona, you'll be setting your clocks one hour ahead.

DOT has overseen the time change laws since 1966, when Congress transferred this responsibility from the Interstate Commerce Commission. The current dates for time changes have been active since 2007 and were specified in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. That law moved the start date for Daylight Savings Time into early March from April, extending DST by 5 weeks.

Our National Highway Traffic Safety Administration advises readers that setting clocks ahead can also mean feeling like you've lost an hour of sleep. At least until your body adjusts, that can affect your alertness and reaction time when operating a motor vehicle. So, please, be particularly careful during the next few days when you're behind the wheel.

And local fire departments have been using the twice-a-year time changes as an opportunity to remind people to change the batteries in their smoke detectors. So, when you're setting your clocks ahead this weekend --and even if you're not-- we also encourage you to follow their safety advice.