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Road Signs: Time to change to Metric?

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View Poll Results: Should road signs be update to metric units?
Yes 75 27.37%
No 199 72.63%
Voters: 274. You may not vote on this poll

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Old Mar 3rd, 2013, 10:24   #21
Essexboydave
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As a kid I was taught in imperial, when I went to work I was taught both but now work mainly in metric, but when it comes to my vehicles-especially my bikes-I want speeds in mph! Only one of my bikes even has kph and that's in tiny lettering inside the mph bit so that leaves 3 others that would need new speedos and that doesn't come cheap. There is also the other issue of just how many road signs would need changing and how much our taxes would go up when the government use that as an excuse to raise more money from drivers!
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Old Mar 3rd, 2013, 12:37   #22
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Despite being taught the metric system if I ask anyone how far it is from A to B the answer is allways in miles,never kilowhatsits,ask anyone taught in the metric system to demonstrate how far 6" is and they will show you,ask how far 15cms ( I know the conversion is not accurate ) is,and they usualy cannot.
I once had a late night call from the Ford Motor company asking me to arrange collection of a shipmant from Heathrow for Halewood,the dimensions were given in cm's,the size was such that our little 35cwt was to small,so a 7.5 tonner was found and the driver dragged from the arms of his wife.He later phoned to ask if I had finally lost it,as the package would fit in his cab!!,between Detroit and Colnbrook the size had converted from mm's to cm's,could not have happened with ' or ".
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Old Mar 3rd, 2013, 15:32   #23
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Despite being taught the metric system if I ask anyone how far it is from A to B the answer is allways in miles,never kilowhatsits,ask anyone taught in the metric system to demonstrate how far 6" is and they will show you,ask how far 15cms ( I know the conversion is not accurate ) is,and they usualy cannot.
I once had a late night call from the Ford Motor company asking me to arrange collection of a shipmant from Heathrow for Halewood,the dimensions were given in cm's,the size was such that our little 35cwt was to small,so a 7.5 tonner was found and the driver dragged from the arms of his wife.He later phoned to ask if I had finally lost it,as the package would fit in his cab!!,between Detroit and Colnbrook the size had converted from mm's to cm's,could not have happened with ' or ".
If the USA did carry on with that what President Carter started, then it wouldn't have happend either. On top of that, US measurements differ from those of the UK. A US inch is different. A US mile is different. A US foot is different.
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Old Mar 3rd, 2013, 15:52   #24
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On top of that, US measurements differ from those of the UK. A US inch is different. A US mile is different. A US foot is different.
Really??? I pretty sure the foot/mile in common usage today in the US and the UK are the same!

A US gallon is smaller than an imperial one but other than that they are mostly the same.
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Old Mar 3rd, 2013, 16:25   #25
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I once had a late night call from the Ford Motor company asking me to arrange collection of a shipmant from Heathrow for Halewood,the dimensions were given in cm's,the size was such that our little 35cwt was to small,so a 7.5 tonner was found and the driver dragged from the arms of his wife.He later phoned to ask if I had finally lost it,as the package would fit in his cab!!,between Detroit and Colnbrook the size had converted from mm's to cm's,could not have happened with ' or ".
This is exactly the sort of situation I was thinking of with my earlier post, how did the muppet at Ford not realise an object small enough to fit in the cab would not have dimensions larger than a van?
mm, cm, inch or foot, what happened to the concept of size?
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Old Mar 3rd, 2013, 16:34   #26
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Really??? I pretty sure the foot/mile in common usage today in the US and the UK are the same!

A US gallon is smaller than an imperial one but other than that they are mostly the same.
Agreed, that's my understanding.

Actually though, and moving on, I may have thought of a compromise...

...If the English-speaking nations that currently use the Imperial system were to adopt metric measurements in the cause of the common good, how the non-English speaking nations show a bit of give-and-take by requiring their citizens to adopt the English language which (the US version at least) is probably already the most universally understood language of international science and commerce?

A common system of measurements (metric) and a single Global language (English) would have huge and undeniable benefits, would it not?
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Old Mar 3rd, 2013, 17:53   #27
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Originally Posted by Bill_56 View Post
Agreed, that's my understanding.

Actually though, and moving on, I may have thought of a compromise...

...If the English-speaking nations that currently use the Imperial system were to adopt metric measurements in the cause of the common good, how the non-English speaking nations show a bit of give-and-take by requiring their citizens to adopt the English language which (the US version at least) is probably already the most universally understood language of international science and commerce?

A common system of measurements (metric) and a single Global language (English) would have huge and undeniable benefits, would it not?
I would say that most of the world do speak and understand english either as a first language or as a second language.

As a note, even my 90 year old grandma, who's Swedish, speaks a bit of english!

Another benefit would be to use the same grade of temperatures arould the world (making the US giving up on their bleeding Farenheit) using Celcius Degrees - a invention by Swedish Anders Celcius btw and used by about 99% of the worlds population.
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Old Mar 3rd, 2013, 18:07   #28
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Originally Posted by Bill_56 View Post
Agreed, that's my understanding.

Actually though, and moving on, I may have thought of a compromise...

...If the English-speaking nations that currently use the Imperial system were to adopt metric measurements in the cause of the common good, how the non-English speaking nations show a bit of give-and-take by requiring their citizens to adopt the English language which (the US version at least) is probably already the most universally understood language of international science and commerce?

A common system of measurements (metric) and a single Global language (English) would have huge and undeniable benefits, would it not?
Can I just point something out though, the majority of English these days can barely speak it. I mean have you seen or listened to some of it?
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Old Mar 3rd, 2013, 18:47   #29
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Can I just point something out though, the majority of English these days can barely speak it. I mean have you seen or listened to some of it?
That should be 'May' I just point something out........
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Old Mar 3rd, 2013, 18:57   #30
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Really??? I pretty sure the foot/mile in common usage today in the US and the UK are the same!

A US gallon is smaller than an imperial one but other than that they are mostly the same.
1 UK mile = 1.609344 km
1 US mile = 1.609347219 km

Yes, it is only from the 5th after decimal point onwards, but it still is a difference.

Even inner UK there are different measurements. The Scottish inch is longer than an English inch (1.0016 inch compared to 1 inch).

The metric system is all equal. 1 m is 1 m no matter where you are on this planet. 1 kg is 1 kg no matter where you are. All via predefined numbers. As an idea. 1 liter of water weighs 1 kg...

So then talk to someone from the USA about how your MPG is. "I'm getting 35 mpg here in Britain!" "Really? The same engine manages 25 mpg in the States"
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