Road Signs: Time to change to Metric?

[classicswede]

Interesting thread.


I use both metric and imperial and it does come down to application.
I hate the use of CM as I have to convert to MM to visualise the size Feet and inches are a much better way of expressing rough sizes. If fabricating a gate or cutting a shelf it would always be feet and inches, as where milling a small part it would be xx.xxMM

I see no harm in keeping both systems. I can not see how reading MPH on your speedo can be a problem. The numbers are the same shapes in metric or imperial.

I do understand the idea of a common unit of measurement but that is only any use if everyone understands it. I very much doubt an newly qualified driver would express speed in KPH as the will be used to MPH. Yet ask them to estimate size of the steering wheel and the would use MM/CM.

Neither system is perfect and both have flaws. Imperial measures of length were all designed to be compared to things (body parts) and gives a quick easy way of finding an approx. size.

What really does bug me with metric measures is packaging. What use are a box of 10 spark plugs (other than 5/10 cylinder cars) 12 is a much better number for what it will divide into. The same with 10 bread rolls, ideal for the average family with 2.4 children but does not work well for everyone else.


I would not be surprised if we do fully convert to metric in my lifetime, as with everything else a lot of money will be wasted on a unnecessary and unwanted project. The job will not get done right and there will be years of cleaning up to do where things have been missed and contractors have failed to meet their obligations.


As to errors from converting from one system to the other that is down to the person doing it. I know that 1" is 25.4mm for example as I often use the conversion, with everything else I will look it up when I need it and double to check when it actually matters.

[kymg]

G'day,

We in Australia changed to the metric system about thirty five years ago and so far I do not know of any major calamity (that is relevant) that has come about as a result.

We used to get milk in pints now it is 500ml., 1 litre or more.

We buy other products by the gram or kilogramme

We buy petrol by the litre.

The problems occur when people always try to compare the new with the old. Over time that will disappear and you won't even think about the old system.

I am started off at school with the imperial system and could never remember how many how many ounces in a pound or pounds in a stone or feet in a mile etc. The metric system is so so much easier. Everything is a multiple or divisible by ten - I suspect that everyone can understand that - can't they?????

But despite all of this we still talk of babies weights in pounds and ounces.

The real issue here is about CHANGE and people seem to be s#*@ scared of it.

People will say "why change" and I will say "why not". The only reason that the UK and the USA haven't changed is because Politicians are scared crapless of the public out cry.

[Thehood]

fine mate you stick with your metric system, us brits are sticking with pints furlongs and miles, you can shove your litres and kilometres where the sun dont shine, and dead right politicians should be crap scared of public opinion its the only thing that keeps the bent bastards in check

[id5]

Originally Posted by kymg

...The only reason that the UK and the USA haven't changed is because Politicians are scared crapless of the public out cry.

I think that this is where we all have it wrong, change should occur when the majority want the change not when a politician thinks it should, they should just be the rubber stamp.

[green van man]

Interestingly a BBC news report on the hurricane approaching Mexico gave the wind speed as 120 kph which is as she all know a lot more dramatic than 70 mph ( rough in head calculation). Because it sounds faster it must be.
I do not belittle the problems those poor folk face but why the need to dramitise, those capable will convert to the units they are comfortable with those not will have trouble visualiseing the wind speed/force anyway.
20 years as an overhead linesman ingrains a scence of what weather particularly wind is doing, the numbers became academic , in a blow it was how tight you could bolt your arse that decided what got done and what you came back to when it settled down.

Paul.

[spuds22]

Very emotive subject , but coming from a Engineering machine shop background imperial is head and shoulders above metric for being broken down to smaller sizes i.e. 0.001" is much more accurate than 0.01mm , and taking a mm to 3 places is to small a measurement

[conedia]

I lived in Canada when it changed to metric units on the roads, in 1977. There was no confusion, amazingly, and no change in accident rates either (and back then all our speedometers were in mph only). After no more than a few months, we all became used to it. I still mentally convert my speed to km/h, and on my V40 I have all the settings to metric (L/100 km for fuel consumption, etc). We are now one of only two significant countries still using imperial units on our roads (the USA being the other), and, bizarrely, we are the ONLY country that makes using metric units on our road signs illegal (not even the USA does that, and there are many areas in that country that have dual marked signs, especially near the Mexican and Canadian borders).

To keep using imperial on our road signs sends out a really strong message to the rest of the world - the UK is rubbish, behind the times, retarded, outdated, and not fit for purpose.

[GMcL]

Maybe the UK should also switch to driving on the right too, conedia ?

Trucks and buses from 1st September, anything that's left from 1st October.

I don't see what the fuss is about imperial vs metric, as long as you know what the units are it's only a number. Europe has managed this last couple of thousand years with more than one language, why are numbers an issue?

[wooble]

Originally Posted by spuds22

Very emotive subject , but coming from a Engineering machine shop background imperial is head and shoulders above metric for being broken down to smaller sizes i.e. 0.001" is much more accurate than 0.01mm , and taking a mm to 3 places is to small a measurement

Hold on, hold on. 0.001" (three places) is OK, but 0.001mm (three places, equivalent to 0.0000394") is not? As an engineer-in-training, I find metric far easier to express small dimensions than imperial.

[xsaab]

Perhaps we should revert to the fortnight, chain, coconut measurement system as favoured in my early engineering days.