This is the 25th anniversary of the Labour Day weekend when Canadian
roads went metric. This was done by pasting a decal with the new
km/h speed limit on every speed limit sign in Canada.. The changes
were:
Old limit in mph New limit in km/h
20 30
30 50
40 70
50 80
60 100
70 110
The highway distance signs were changed to kilometres during the
following year.
Despite the dire prediction of a professor of psychology at Queen's
University, Kingston, Ontario, that there would be a slaughter on the
roads due to the new speed limits, there was no increase in
accidents, which may be due to Canadian drivers not paying much
attention to speed limits.
Highways and speed limits are a provincial responsibility in Canada,
but all the provinces acted at the same time in this case.
All new automobiles sold in Canada after August 1977 were required to
have speedometers reading in km/h and odometers in km.
A favorite statement of the Director of Metric Commission Canada was
"Don't duel with dual".
--
Joseph B. Reid
17 Glebe Road West
Toronto M5P 1C8 Tel. 416 486-6071
