Road Signs: Time to change to Metric?

[john.wigley]

Originally Posted by Othen

Indeed yes - the imperial wheel size piece also extends to motorcycles and many (but not all) pushbikes - no one ever states what units the wheel size is in, it is just down to context. With pushbike tyres '27' means a 27" rim, but a 700C means a 622mm rim (if I recall correctly the 700 refers to 700mm being the diameter of a rim plus an inflated tyre) - such is the intrinsic logic of the metric system :-)

Alan

Alan, Alan! I thought better of you! Push-bikes indeed! They're pedal-cycles, don't you know?

Regards, John (The Pedant)

[Baxlin]

Originally Posted by john.wigley

Alan, Alan! I thought better of you! Push-bikes indeed! They're pedal-cycles, don't you know?

Regards, John (The Pedant)

You must be younger than you make out to being, John, if you don’t call them push-bikes.....

Regards
Malcolm (the realist)

[Othen]

Originally Posted by john.wigley

Alan, Alan! I thought better of you! Push-bikes indeed! They're pedal-cycles, don't you know?

Regards, John (The Pedant)

Originally Posted by Baxlin

You must be younger than you make out to being, John, if you don’t call them push-bikes.....

Regards
Malcolm (the realist)

Sorry chaps, I was not out to make any point - I'm just a bloke of a particular age...

Best wishes,

Alan (the old-fashioned).

PS. I've just learned how to post multi-quotes; I'd always wondered how people did that :-).

[Dippydog]

To add to the mix we called them[I still do]push irons.

[canis]

Originally Posted by Othen

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.

It's a pity nobody told petrol pump designers. I'd love to choose my own units.

[Baxlin]

Originally Posted by canis

It's a pity nobody told petrol pump designers. I'd love to choose my own units.

Wasn’t/Isn’t it an EU requirement that fuel is sold in litres? It was certainly the case for other things like food - remember the greengrocer ‘martyrs’?

[pinballdave]

Originally Posted by Baxlin

Wasn’t/Isn’t it an EU requirement that fuel is sold in litres? It was certainly the case for other things like food - remember the greengrocer ‘martyrs’?

There's never been any restriction on selling any item using any measuring units, the regulations only a required the inclusion of metric units as well.

You could quite happily sell spaghetti by the furlong, as long as you also labelled it in millilitres.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by canis

It's a pity nobody told petrol pump designers. I'd love to choose my own units.

It would be a trivial matter to change the programming for the display of course - just like one's watch can report 12h or 24h time. I'm pretty sure that petrol and diesel are regulated and so only able to be sold in litres (like wines and spirits).

Good fortune,

Alan

[Othen]

Originally Posted by pinballdave

There's never been any restriction on selling any item using any measuring units, the regulations only a required the inclusion of metric units as well.

You could quite happily sell spaghetti by the furlong, as long as you also labelled it in millilitres.

I don't think that is quite right - I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure the trading standards people would insist on things being sold in the prescribed (metric) units unless there is a dispensation (as there is for beer in pubs and milk).

I dimly recall a few old fashioned greengrocers and butchers being threatened with prosecution for keeping their imperial measure scales and balances (probably 40 years ago). I don't think anything has changed today.

Good fortune,

Alan

PS. It has just occurred to me that you may indeed be an expert in this - perhaps you do work in the trading standards area? As I said, I'm only a layman, so if you do know the chapter and verse then please do tell us here, I'd be really interested as this comes up from time to time (generally, not just on this forum).

PPS. To be pedantic (apologies): furlongs are a measure of length, millilitres are of volume, they can never be equivalents :-)

[Baxlin]

Re the PPS above.

Mrs B was checking out a new recipe yesterday, and one ingredient was “a pint of blueberries”, which, I seem to recall, are usually sold by weight...