Dear John, >From an Australian perspective, you are absolutely right. Here the conversion was planned (for over a year) and done at all levels of construction on a day (called M-day for the road construction industry). Overall the conversion process was 90�% done within about a month and the rest was 'mopped-up' within the next six months.
It seems to me that the success of this process was in the planning that included: 1 Government commitment at all government levels; 2 Extensive consultation within the industry so that it became clear to all that the conversion was going to happen on the industry M-day � there was no room left for those who wanted to sabotage the conversion; 3 A definite M-day to give focus to all the people concerned. I believe that the M-day model is extremely important in that it (and the publicity that surrounds the M-day) provides a social (moral) effect to say 'It's OK for me to convert to metric, because everybody else is going to do it at the same time � I can't gain or lose by not changing as we will all be in the same situation at the same time'. Cheers, Pat Naughtin CAMS Geelong, Australia on 2002-07-14 00.10, kilopascal at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > 2002-07-13 > > First of all, we need to make something clear. For the majority of the > states the "reverted" to FFU right away, it is clear they never went metric > in the first place. Of course, they had plans to do so if the issue was > forced, but most just waited until the last minute expecting a reprieve from > the Feds, which they did get. > > So, there was no real reversion. The others that actually did revert did so > because they never converted their entire states. All that converted to > metric was the state level construction. County and local construction > never went metric. This was difficult for contractors who had to switch > back and forth depending on who they were working for on any particular > project. And I'd bet there were some projects funded by both state and > local agencies that ended up using both systems at the same time. Can you > imagine the confusion that must have resulted? > > The result is the mess that occurs when there is no co-ordinated effort on > all parts. The states that did convert, if they had forced all construction > agencies right down to the local level to follow suit, there would never had > been a reversion. All of those states would be fully metric today. > > We shouldn't be upset at states that are reverting, as they are up against a > lot of resistance. We should be angry at those who didn't plan this > conversion well. Now, any future attempts will be met with scepticism from > the present fiasco. And with the American economy in very bad shape, don't > expect anything to be done about it anytime soon. > > John
