Road Signs: Time to change to Metric?

[Thanatos]

yeah that an official measurement

[arcturus]

I think that its time that we ALL drove on the left then there would be no confusion when I re visit UK plus I wouldn't keep going to the wrong side to get in as I have both a LH and RHD car.

[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.

[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.

[ebo]

well on that though .we may as well start to drive on the right. Then we be truely be European .When the European joined the Americans to space look what happened 1 space shuttle blown to smithereens all thanks to mumbo jumbo measures .The yanks managed to put a man on the moon using imp measures seems simple to me .