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Road Signs: Time to change to Metric?

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Replies : 358

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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 Sep 25th, 2020, 13:16   #291
DaveNP
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dash300 View Post
Wood yards mix the two. You by a 5 meter length of 4x2!!
Except you'd have to buy a 5.1m length, which would still be 3.5 inches short of 17ft (but I'm not sure there's wood yard near here that sell timber as long as that anyway ) one of the bizarre experiences I've had in a DIY place was to try to get the spotty youth to cut a piece of timber to 3.03m, he insisted it didn't need cutting as it came in that length already - 3.3m
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Old Sep 25th, 2020, 13:36   #292
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Wrong Dash300 (at least round here). 4" x 2" is no longer offered unless if planed all round (PAR) and you purchase the next size up in metric standard sizes when sawn and machine down to your size. They went partial metric (which I loathe) ages ago, as did the brick industry (which I used to work for). Try finding housebricks to match those on your 25+ years old house for that extension unless you buy from an architectural salvage company as I did.
My current pet hate: car fuel economy facts listed (and respected by every user) in miles per gallon where schools teach more and more in metric units. Try converting mpg to km per litre?

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Old Sep 25th, 2020, 14:20   #293
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Originally Posted by Triple-S View Post
... Try converting mpg to km per litre?

P
Multiply by 0.354, or divide by 3 for a quicker rough figure

I prefer litres per 100km, it's more obvious when you're using more or less fuel, working out how much fuel you've used is easier just look at how many hundred km you've done* and multiply l/100km by that, and mpg x l/100km = 282 (well almost but that's as close as any other metric/imperial conversion)

*of course you need an odometer set to kms for that

**Yes I drive a truck for a living and a bit of mental arithmetic whiles away the long miles/kilometres on the motorway.
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Old Sep 26th, 2020, 03:41   #294
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I would never want to change to km, be it fuel or distance.

I own a pro weather station and as such i also have my own server and a weather website etc. The station and site data is setup like this...

Temp = C
Wind speed = MPH
Rain = mm
Pressure = MB
Visibility distance = Miles

I also prefer snow in inches, but ever since our winters turned to into little PC Snowflakes meaning we dont get snow like we used to, ive started to use CM for snow depth

Many of the apps I use recognise that the UK has its own set of data sets, means that we can use the above, ie, emp in C and wind in MPH, that's what the media uses anyway, really it should be temp = F when using MPH or C when using KPH and thankfully, many places recognise the UK uses this system, some apps still do not, but that's by the by, i prefer the UK system as it is, keep MPH and Miles
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Old Sep 26th, 2020, 09:04   #295
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I can sympathise with the idea - and it’s actually more like 40 years since we should have all be working in metric units (you can blame Margaret T for the confusion, she was secretary for education and said that both systems should be taught!) The cost of changing all the road signs is not justified at a time when we should be focusing on keeping jobs and the NHS going. My XC90 will tell me how fast I am going in mph or kmph anyway.
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Old Sep 26th, 2020, 10:15   #296
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I've just stumbled upon this thread, skimmed through and found it quite interesting.

The original premise: that it might be time to change the road signs to metric ones, is a nonsense of course. We are a big enough country and economy to have our own way of doing things and there is nothing whatsoever wrong with the one we have in miles and yards.

In a wider sense, of course schools, colleges and universities should teach both imperial and metric systems, everyone should be able to work with both (neither is very complicated) and switch between them (Mrs Thatcher was absolutely right in this respect).

The world (not just the USA) will continue to use bits of the imperial system here and there, tyre diameters will continue to be mostly in inches, aircraft fuel will be mostly in pounds, big things will be in tons (and no one will bother to say whether they mean an imperial ton (2280lbs) or tonne - because in that context the difference won't matter). The screw that hold your camera onto the tripod will continue to have an imperial (actually Whitworth) thread for ever (if not longer).

The metric system isn't always all that decimal anyway. Take the PS (Pferdestärke) - it is (from memory, so apologies if I don't have it exactly right) the power required to lift 75kgf at 1m per second. 75kgf isn't a very round number, but the figure at the end makes it about the same as a James Watt type horsepower (from memory 33,000 lbf.ft per minute).

The units we use for time (hours/minutes/seconds) and for measuring angles (degrees/minutes/seconds) will probably never change, so the association between decimal making the metric system superior isn't all that strong as everyone (and particularly engineers and scientists) needs to be able to calculate in 60s, 24s and 360s...

The case for changing would have been a stronger one prior to the 1980s when electronic computers started becoming part of our everyday lives, but today it is immaterial since the computer (the one in our phone, watch, car, cash register, vacuum cleaner...) can quickly do the linear conversion for us.

Just my view on this interesting subject... but it would seem the overwhelming voice if the body of the kirk agrees:



Good thread.

Alan

Last edited by Othen; Sep 26th, 2020 at 11:09. Reason: Spelling error.
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Old Sep 26th, 2020, 11:09   #297
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Good post, Alan, except for the typo (I’m assuming it’s a typo, anyway), an Imperial ton is 2240 lbs, hence 112 lbs is a hundredweight (cwt), or 1/20th of a ton. Intriguing that metrication seems to appear even here, though.
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Old Sep 26th, 2020, 12:38   #298
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The French introduced a decimal day during the Revolution which was 10 hours each of 100 minutes and 100 seconds.
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Old Sep 26th, 2020, 13:16   #299
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Baxlin View Post
Good post, Alan, except for the typo (I’m assuming it’s a typo, anyway), an Imperial ton is 2240 lbs, hence 112 lbs is a hundredweight (cwt), or 1/20th of a ton. Intriguing that metrication seems to appear even here, though.
... just my fat fingers: 20 cwt x 8st x 14 lbs... easy isn't it :-)
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Old Sep 26th, 2020, 13:22   #300
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Quote:
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The French introduced a decimal day during the Revolution which was 10 hours each of 100 minutes and 100 seconds.
Really, I didn't know that. So a metric second would have been 0.864 seconds long.

Alan
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