Switching to km/h

IC3 · 8 Jan 2014 at 17:07

K.C. Leblanc said:
But it's easy, the secret is to practise in a RHD car so when you have to drive a LHD car you're prepared.

Yeah, but when I first got into my dads car, my right hand was hitting the door looking for the gear box. :rolleyes:

Dogbreath · 8 Jan 2014 at 17:17

FishFluff said:
I've switched everything in my life to be metric. It just makes so much more sense than feet, yards, miles, furlongs, pounds, stones, gallons or whatever.

That must make ordering tyres interesting for you. "I need 4 tyres, size 225/45R431.8 please"

I really don't see what advantage it would bring. Everyone knows the speed limits in MPH, the speedometer clearly displays the current speed in MPH so whats the problem?

IC3 · 8 Jan 2014 at 17:20

Dogbreath said:
That must make ordering tyres interesting for you. "I need 4 tyres, size 225/45R431.8 please"

Even in Europe people use inches for tyres, but speed, distance is all in kilometers.

Dr Who · 8 Jan 2014 at 17:31

Changing the unit of measure for speed would be completely pointless, you don't need the units to change just because others use different units and it doesn't matter whether you know or understand a mile as long as you can read a speedometer or odometer.

It would be a futile waste of money that serves no purpose other than to people who have imported cars post sale.

Millwall.FC · 8 Jan 2014 at 18:24

This would never happen as it would mess up the majority of roads in London. I've paid for enough cycle lanes would not want to see more money wasted on something that does not need changing.

adam cool dude · 8 Jan 2014 at 22:38

I do not understand why we need to change. Okay I agree it is nonsense that your tyres are pumped up in psi then you fill your car in litres but it is that quirkiness that makes us great. After all it is just a unit of measurement for us to follow. They could set the speed limit to 900 strands of string as long as it meant we could follow it.

Simon · 8 Jan 2014 at 23:00

wingman said:
I think for the first few days there would be a huge drop in accidents as everyone would be driving ultra-cautious.

And 130mph on motorways

FishFluff · 8 Jan 2014 at 23:18

Janesy B said:
That's a bit strange really.

Why is it strange? I have literally no idea how far 100 yards is but if my sat nav told me 100m I'd know straight away.

Antony101 · 8 Jan 2014 at 23:20

FishFluff said:
Why is it strange? I have literally no idea how far 100 yards is but if my sat nav told me 100m I'd know straight away.

For future reference, a yard is about 0.92m.

theone8181 · 9 Jan 2014 at 02:09

Antony101 said:
For future reference, a yard is about 0.92m.

Or 3 feet

Dont most car handbooks have tyre pressures in bar and psi anyway?

Dr Who · 9 Jan 2014 at 07:10

FishFluff said:
Why is it strange? I have literally no idea how far 100 yards is but if my sat nav told me 100m I'd know straight away.

Well if you need to know you could always look it up rather than have a whole country change for you.

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior · 9 Jan 2014 at 12:01

Intersting, I have a theory that we should be ditching the per hour part of KMH or MPH and moving to metres per second.

Why? Well its much more relevant to something a human can comprehend.
100KPH (62MPH roughly) is 27.8 MPS. So a 30MPH limit is about 13 meters per second, think about that when doing 30MPH down narrow side streets with double parked cars.

Or even, tanking along at 80MPH your doing 36 meters every second. Its much more relevant and I believe people would be much more alert to how fast they are actually travelling as its a relevant distance/time period for our brains to handle. MPH means nothing, I bet if you asked the average person to go and mark out a mile they would be at least 10% off.

ChocolateStarfishRammer · 9 Jan 2014 at 12:34

Certainly not. Personally just because I wouldnt like it and just like everyone else.. I hate change. (and my brain is useless at converting between mph and kph)

But on the mass, theres absolutely no point in it. It would not benefit anything, and would only incur a humungous bill at the end to be paid out of our pockets.

Hagar · 9 Jan 2014 at 12:59

As a practising engineer and born in the fifties, I am fully conversant in UK imperial, metric and US measures for weight, distance, force and velocity. I convert in my head 39.37 inches to the metre, .3048m to the foot etc. The americans use kips or kilopounds and several other peculiar metric imperial units. So why change what works for all. I prefer drinking pints to half litres and 1/6th gill for spirits.

Phemo · 9 Jan 2014 at 13:45

acemastr said:
They do? never seen one.

I'm sure you have, just probably never paid attention to them before but they look like they do in this wiki article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_location_sign

The number at the bottom is a distance marker which is indeed measured in km.

Hagar · 9 Jan 2014 at 14:34

Phemo said:
I'm sure you have, just probably never paid attention to them before but they look like they do in this wiki article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_location_sign

The number at the bottom is a distance marker which is indeed measured in km.

The motorway will have been designed using metric measurement (only possibly excluding parts of the M6, M1 and M5).

Dogbreath · 9 Jan 2014 at 14:59

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Why? Well its much more relevant to something a human can comprehend.
100KPH (62MPH roughly) is 27.8 MPS.

I doubt megapetasiemens will be popular as a unit of speed

BigglesPiP · 9 Jan 2014 at 15:21

I'd be in favour of a move to left hand drive, cars would be cheaper and safer for the driver in a crash.

But it was a bit messy when Sweden did it:

Dr Who · 9 Jan 2014 at 15:25

BigglesPiP said:
I'd be in favour of a move to left hand drive, cars would be cheaper and safer for the driver in a crash.

How would they be safer in a crash? The driver would still be in the centre of the road and we would have to re-engineer thousands of junctions.

ttaskmaster · 9 Jan 2014 at 15:54

Rilot said:
In Britain we have the stupid situation where we fill our cars up with fuel measured in litres and then measure the economy in miles per gallon. We measure the weight of our cars in kg but the pressure in our tyres in pounds per square inch.

I speak some German, with enough French, Spanish, Turkish and Latin to just about get by in numerous countries and time periods. I was taught all this in school (with the swear words picked up along the way).
How is this any different?

My bike weighs 42 stone (266kg), holds 22 lites of fuel, averages 48mpg, requires 28 and 32psi front & rear tyres.

It's all about the points of reference you have. Would you rather I hurt you a mere 5 Lancets of pain (made up for the sake of argument), or I hurt you with a full pin*****?

Rilot said:
It's absolutely bonkers. I wish we would just make the switch and stop hanging on to old imperial units that make no sense.

The length of my foot (and happily, my forearm) is exactly 12" or one foot, which is 30cm and the length of a normal desk ruler (with half that being a pocket ruler), as well as the minimum safe distance I can stand from a third rail to avoid getting 750 volts through my hide.

I understand all this fully - What's your excuse?

Rilot said:
Even our schools don't teach imperial. How many yards in a mile guys? Feet in a yard? Why use units no one born after 1970 knows anything about?

Yes they do teach this - 1760 and 3. I was born well after 1970 and have a full grasp of this, as well as many other imperial measurements.

If it matters THAT much, YOU can pay for all the alterations to the road, rail and utilities networks. As is, I've had enough of new regulations created by Europe but only followed by the UK!

nkata said:
I prefer drinking pints to half litres and 1/6th gill for spirits.

I prefer bushels and hogsheads myself, but to each their own, heh heh!!