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Australia converted about forty years ago. The world didn't end. People got used to kilometres in the same way as they got used to litres. I find it no difficulty to think in either metric or imperial and I doubt if anyone else would either if they gave it a fair try. The only thing I do find difficult is fuel consumption. We use litres per 100km which I find difficult to convert. My Falcon gets 12.9 litres per 100km which is somewhere around 20mpg but I would need a calculator to convert it exactly. Speed limits are easy - 6 miles is 10 km. 110kph limit is 66 mph. Couldn't be simpler.
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"Australia converted about forty years ago. The world didn't end. People got used to kilometres in the same way as they got used to litres. I find it no difficulty to think in either metric or imperial and I doubt if anyone else would either if they gave it a fair try."
Fair enough, but name one benefit it brought to anyone?
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"Fair enough, but name one benefit it brought to anyone?"
Consistency. Everything else over here is metric. It would be stupid to keep the road signs in miles.
Why do you want to keep them in the UK if all other measurements are in metric?
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Speed limits are easy .......
....... 110kph limit is 66 mph.
Agreed. But in point of fact the conversion factor doesn't really matter anyway provided that your speedo has a scale with the same units as the speed limit signs.
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L\'escargot.
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"Perhaps we should switch to driving on the right while we're at it. "
Now that's something I think should be gradually phased in over a few years.
V
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"Perhaps we should switch to driving on the right while we're at it. " Now that's something I think should be gradually phased in over a few years.
Ok, you go first, Vin ... and let us know how you get on ;)
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Without going inot the emotive realm of hospitals etc, how much road improvement can you buy for £80m? (I'm thinking junction improvements not bypasses).
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The KM/H markings in my car and in fact, all Fords I've ever driven has been tiny. How are they going to get around that?
Obviously there's a way and I'm sure people drive Focuses in Ireland. But what is it?
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The KM/H markings in my car and in fact, all Fords I've ever driven has been tiny. How are they going to get around that? Obviously there's a way and I'm sure people drive Focuses in Ireland. But what is it?
Mentally translate the speeds to mph/h. Conversion tables were issued at the time. 50km/h=30mph, 80km/h=50mph, etc. Very easy
Name-change time: NoWheels + Almera = NowWheels
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They're not exact though are they?
I mean - given that creeping over the limit is so dangerous, you'd think 31.07mph in a 30 limit would be breaking the law surely.
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SShh Adam. Excellent though NW evidently is, I can't help feeling she might benefit from a bit of police harrassment as a result of some minor miscalculation on, say, a speed limit. The club of Motoring Hooligans would benefit greatly from having her as a member. So just let it happen.
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Didn't Sweden convert from driving on the left to the right in the sixties ?, i seem to remember that there were some serious accidents, imagine the same scenario now,in this country,with the higher level of traffic.
Imagine the carnage at roundabouts.
How about motorway exits , they would be all wrong, most road signs would be facing the wrong way.
Also digging about in my memory, when metrification was thought up wasn't the idea mooted of banning religion and preaching to sex and alchohol ?, also was there not a 10 hour clock?.
If we do accept metrification can we pick and choose some of the others as well.
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Nigeria did too. 24-hour ban on all but official traffic and very cautious speed limits for a couple of days thereafter... there were quite a lot of accidents but then there are in the normal course of events. At least they had the excuse that you can just drive from one country to the next, and Sweden had it too. We haven't.
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Didn't Sweden convert from driving on the left to the right in the sixties ?, >>
'71 IIRC
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1971 if I recall correctly.
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They're not exact though are they? I mean - given that creeping over the limit is so dangerous, you'd think 31.07mph in a 30 limit would be breaking the law surely.
No, they are not exact, but they mostly work out to give a little more leeway. So the 50km/h limit is actually the equivalent of 31.07km/h, 100km/h is 62.14 etc. The only ones which works t'other way round are 80km/h (49.71mph) and the 120km/h mway limit (74.56mph). Would your speedo tell accurately you the difference between 50mph and 49.71mph?
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Obviously there's a way and I'm sure people drive Focuses in Ireland. But what is it?
I'm sure people question how they do a lot of things!
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L\'escargot.
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Slightly off topic - but - here in Spain most official and business invoices, bank statements and many shops still show PESETAS as well as Euros.
Resistance to change is not solely the prerogative of the British!
All change should be resisted unless it can be proved to have a measurable benefit in £sd talking of which .....................
Roger. (Costa del Sol, España)
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Hear! Hear, Malteser! Also, back on topic, and to quote Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland, from a speech he made in 1641, "When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change". A more modern example of this exists in China where, AFAIK, they still drive on the left in Hong Kong, but on the right in mainland China.
People drove on the left long before the French decided to change, as a quick Google, or Forum Search, will confirm.
Anyway, why on earth should we pay any attention to anything a hypocritcal failed politiciam like Neil Kinnock has to say - recalling not least that the now "Lord" Kinnock once proclaimed that he would never ever join the House of Lords!
Jack
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Car auctions are conducted in Pesetas in Spain because traders cannot thing fast enough in Euros. However, the final invoice price is in Euros.
HJ
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This thread reminds me of an overheard conversation in a carpet shop:
Assistant: "It works out at 20 square metres of carpet madam."
Customer: "That won't fit my house at all young man. My house was built in feet and inches."
;o)
Oz (as was)
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"I thought politics wasn't allowed ..."
You're right Lud, politics isn't allowed, which is why I only said I'd be tempted to get into a debate on those issues - I chose not to as it would take us off topic.
Anyway, I'm not advocating a changeover to metric - as I said, I myself am more comfortable thinking in miles and I tend to agree with Lud, Vin and others that it would be a waste of money. Ideally, I do think it makes more sense to have common measurements, e.g. for scientific purposes, architecture, etc., but the large-scale project costs of changing roadsigns to metric would far outweigh the benefits in my opinion.
What I chose to comment on was the *basis* for opposing metrication as expressed above - the mentality of "Britain vs the encroaching hordes", rather than something based in reason (i.e. it's an unnecessary waste of money). The only thing that I would see as being part of a national tradition is the pint in the pub - which is alive and well!
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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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To do a screaming U-turn and endorse the metrication campaign for a moment, wasn't there some sort of booboo during a recent space shot - a European satellite launch I think - resulting from makers of different parts of the device thinking in different measurements?
It wd be hard to credit if it hadn't actually happened.
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>>there some sort of booboo during a recent space shot...
Yes, it was a NASA (JPL) project, the Mars orbiter. One component supplier used Imperial, while NASA themselves were sensibly using metric in their calcs!
Requirements specifications for ESA led missions specify via ECSS, the use of metric units as an absolute requirements in engineering drawings, calculations, computer simulations and documents at all project stages.
However, the documentation workload, even for unmanned missions, is so great, that errors are bound to occur which fall between the gaps. You might call it an excercise in de-forestation, but I couldn't possibly comment!
Because space missions take so long to plan, design, build, test and launch, when measured against human life spans of the engineers and scientists working on the projects, the ability for experience to be passed on between space missions is somewhat limited. Although there are lengthy procedures and onerous documentation requirements in place, I wouldn't be so bold as to say that the Mars Orbiter will be the last mission lost to what might be seen as an easily avoidable cause.
Number_Cruncher
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Thank you NC, sorry I assumed it was a European disaster, bit of the old British masochism there no doubt, thought I was immune to it... Correct me if I'm wrong but I seem to remember that US Imperial is a bit niggardly by UK Imperial standards, gallon not 4.546 litres like the virile British gallon but something less.
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Yes, I think you're right, there are some differences.
I must confess, I avoid using anything other than metric in engineering calcs if I can get away with it.
The few times that I have had to work in Imperial units, I have cheated, by converting everything to metric, doing the calc, and then converting back in the last line.
IIRC, one of the outcomes of the loss of Mars Orbiter was an acceptance by NASA that because the scientific community uses metric units, American engineering suppliers to NASA should begin to use metric too.
Having said all of this, I would stuggle to gauge my consumption of ale in litres (beyond admitting that it's probably excessive!), and would fail hopelessly to estimate distances between places in kilometres.
Number_Cruncher
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UNITS, NC, UNITS! I believe a healthy male weighing between 75 and 450 pounds can safely drink 15 or 20 of these a day... wish I knew what they were.
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Funnily enough I always envisioned that the change over would be a rolling replacement of current signs, as happens with the current signs we've got which are replaced every so often. If so how would it cost any more than the normal rolling replacement we have now? It's the only way the politicians could organize it without bring the whole country to a stand still.
Dave
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"traders cannot thing fast enough in Euros"
And I can't think fast enough in kilometres, litres or kg, which is why I still calculate fuel consumption in mpg, order my beer in pints and buy pounds of sausages (although the latter also has 454g printed on the packet, presumably for the benefit of foreigners).
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A few years ago they changed all the smaller road signs (i.e not large direction signs) in South Yorkshire because, or so it appeared, they didn't comply with new height regulations. The new signs were identical to the old except that they were a few centimetres higher. How daft can you get?
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L\'escargot.
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We should have become 100% metric by now. Our Ordnabce survey maps have been metric for 30 years, everything is designed in metric measurements, weights, money, volumes etc are metric except for pints of milk or beer. Time to go the whole hog, it wouldn't bother me.
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Although I'm fully conversant with both Imperial and metric units, I just get a sneaking feeling that the countries that were metric have put one over on us by persuading us to go metric. If we had had any guts it would have been the reverse, with the rest of the world following our lead and converting to Imperial. I bet some of our adversaries of the two world wars are laughing their socks off.
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L\'escargot.
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"Time to go the whole hog, it wouldn't bother me"
It wouldn't bother me at all, either, but I want to know one single tangible advantage it would bring.
V
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It really goes without saying that for scientific and technical purposes a world standard is required, given the amount of international cooperation in these fields. Since it already exists, there is no need to lobby for one.
For shopping and travelling purposes there is no need for anything of the sort. Let people have what they are used to, and let the foreigners enjoy struggling with these unfamiliar and unreasonable systems. It may at least help to keep them awake. Converting miles per litre to miles per gallon is a simple calculation now that we all have calculators, although it would have been a bit tiresome without them.
In a hard-currency-only shop reserved for foreigners in Mozambique once I was given my change in a handful of coins and notes that included Portuguese, French, American and South African currencies, South Africa at the time being regarded pretty much as an enemy state, at least officially. I didn't even try to work out whether it was correct. Love that sort of thing actually and suspect many others do too.
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Lud, you're wrong. Shopping (trade) is the area where the case for compulsory metrication is the stongest - imagine if one filling station sold fuel by the litre, the next by the pint and the next by a measure of their own creation? It's the same reason why there are so many fruit & vegetable market traders (and even one supermarket) who profit from the fact that most shoppers are unable/unwilling to make a conversion between kg and pounds when comparing prices.
I conceed that the case for metricating our roads is maybe less compelling, but I'm just so embarrased by the pathetic dithering Britishness of it all. We just don't seem to be able to accept that a French invention (which let's be honest, is rather more practical and elegant than our own 'system') has become the global standard. Other than the USA there isn't an industiraled nation on earth that hasn't adopted it. I hope we do dump imperial - seems to me that the costs are negligible in the context of total roads spending. Perfectly affordable if it was phased over a couple of years.
Dilbert (became metric expert 1975, aged 6)
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REALLY dilbert. Pathetic dithering Britishness indeed! Arrogant indifferent rational Britishness is what it is. The pathetic dithering sort, which is altogether too usual, worries about whether our ethnic brethren (the Europeans) haven't perhaps got it more right than we have. Of course they haven't. Just a different view, and they are compatible. We don't have to go for one or the other.
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Other than the USA there isn't an industiraled nation on earth that hasn't adopted it.
The fact that the largest industrialised nation on earth hasn't adopted it is sufficient condemnation of the idea for me.
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L\'escargot.
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It might have made sense going metric in respect of distances and speeds in the early 70's when schools were starting to teach in metric and decimal currency was introduced (15th Feb 71 IIRC).
However today not only are the logistics enormous it has also been proven through a few generations now that we can cope with mixed denominations in a number of different areas, for instance a 14 year old lad today will have only been taught in metric though still aspires to be 6ft tall, he will know what a pint is long before his first (legal) beer in a pub and is quite able to understand that 0 to 100 mph in under 15 seconds is really quite fast.
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"The fact that the largest industrialised nation on earth hasn't adopted it is sufficient condemnation of the idea for me."
Hear, hear! And look what happened when they messed about with that foreign stuff...
www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric/
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but I'm just so embarrased by the pathetic dithering Britishness of it all.
Aren't you ashamed to admit to being unpatriotic?
Dilbert (became metric expert 1975, aged 6)
So you're too young to have experienced the advantages of Imperial units.
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L\'escargot.
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So you're too young to have experienced the advantages of Imperial units.
Correction ~ So you were too young .......
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L\'escargot.
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"It's the same reason why there are so many fruit & vegetable market traders (and even one supermarket) who profit from the fact that most shoppers are unable/unwilling to make a conversion between kg and pounds when comparing prices."
Er, isn't that an argument for keeping it the way it was? Since they all have to show metric units, whether we like it or not, the only difficulty is for those (still a majority) who think of such things in Imperial. That poor chap (now prematurely dead) who tried to sell bananas by the pound was doing it because that's what his customers wanted!
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How about reserecting the Back Room Poll Dave ?
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Pugugly,
Besides beign high maintenance, the ever so frequent pedantic comments make me reluctant to resurrect it.
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Besides beign high maintenance, the ever so frequent pedantic comments make me reluctant to resurrect it.
I thought that might be the reason :( Personally, I thought that the competitive pedantry was one of the most enjoyable bits of the polls. Any chance you could consider just ignoring us poll-pedants and leaving us to wibble away at each other?
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Here's a new thought, as we know the government would love to introduce some form of road pricing. Taking it that people tend to think in general terms with regard to numbers. If say 10 years down the line a road price of say 10p per mile was introduced, keeping the image of 10p in your mind apply that to kilometres and hey presto 1/3rd increase in income in a single stroke.
Don't forget governmnets tend to think in terms longer than we do, planning for something 10 years ahead wouldn't be unusual.
But then again I could just be paranoid.
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Can we have a poll to reinstate the polls?
I'm all for it myself. And as we all know, the amount I post, my vote counts for ten men. Must be pushing 5000 posts surely?
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Jeez.
Make that nearly 6000.
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"Don't forget governmnets tend to think in terms longer than we do"
Are you sure? I thought one of the problems was that their horizon was 5 years max!
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Weel that's one of the problem with multi-term governments. They start getting abmitious!
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I think children are only taught metric now at school, with perhaps a passing reference to feet and inches. So full metrication looks inevitable.
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Is this Neil Kinnock bloke who wants to introduce metric roads signs the same Neil Kinnock who thought he had the 1987 election won and promised to get rid of the endemic fraud, corruption and nepotism practised in Brussels?
I think we might have imperial road signs for some time judging by his success in other areas.
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Phil
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"the same Neil Kinnock"
Nice piece in the current Private Eye about the proposed adoption of the Km, i.e. the Kinnockmetre, which represents a 1000-page speech (or 5/8 of a year in the old Imperial units of boredom)!
Can't see it happening, myself...
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I think children are only taught metric now at school, with perhaps a passing reference to feet and inches. So full metrication looks inevitable.
Children are definitely taught in metric. i left school in 1989, and was taught in metric. All measurements in construction are metric, although bizarrely the sites are sold in acres and the units sold in square feet.
I vote for metric personally, but there's more pressing things at the moment
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I left school in 1978 and although we learned feet and inches etc in infants metric boks etc were issued c1968/9 and si units used from then on.
My kids, 11 and 13, never met imperial in the classroom. Both know it's a mile to school, two to the next village and that thirty is a damn good bike ride. They measure their mountains climbing achievments in feet.
We can mix and match for a few more years without any trouble.
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All measurements in construction are metric, although bizarrely the sites are sold in acres and the units sold in square feet.
Isn't that a good illustration of the benefits of the status quo? The construction people can use the units they find most appropriate, and the buyers get to use the ones they like. Dunno about you, but most people I know have a better feel for what half-an-acre looks like compared with 0.2ha, and more likely to be able to visualise a 100sq ft room than a 10m 2 one. Feet are actually a better size of unit for measuring the sort of houses most of us live in: metres are too big, which is why yards aren't used for indoor dimensions.
Or do younger people really think in metric units for these things? (aside from those in the professions, who are probably well able to convert anyway).
Besides, most older houses were built in square feet, so there'd be a lot of conversion to be dine on the old housing stock ;)
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I was taught metric...ally? but still count my;
* Journies in miles
* Height in feet
* Weight in stone
* Drinks in pints
* Hats in gallons
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"Hats in gallons"
And oil, IIRC.
40 gallons, even if they are American...
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"40 gallons"
Per barrel, that is - not hat.
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