Dear Mighty Chimp, There have been some items in the Irish Times, a quality newspaper about road metrication, also on its Intermet version. However, it is a paid service. I have not yet seen a website dedicated to Irish road metrication, but a site might be set up soon, as it will be preceded by an information campaign.
>From the Irish Times, October 7 last: Change to kilometres on roads will be like 'mini-euro' Christine Newman A changeover from miles to kilometres on roads, described by the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, yesterday as a "mini-euro" and a huge logistical operation, is due to be completed by next September. The Minister was commenting on recommendations by a specialist group which was set up to review speed limits in the light of new road-safety considerations and the proposed switch to metric limits. A spokesman for the Minister said that, after a weekend of so many road deaths, questions had been asked as to why the speed limit was to be put up in the case of motorways and dual-carriageways. The group recommended raising the speed limit on motorways from the current 70 m.p.h. to 74.5 m.p.h., a figure which corresponds to 120 k.p.h. The spokesman said that the speed limit on these roads would only be put up by about four miles to round it off for metric purposes. There were about 96,000 kilometres of roads, and of that only 6,000 were national roads i.e. motorways and dual-carriageway. The majority of all the other roads were country and local roads. Outside the motorways and dual-carriageways, the actual speed limits were coming down to 50 m.p.h. "These are the roads where, according to studies, the most fatalities occur. Most of the really bad accidents happen there, and do not happen on motorways and dual-carriageways," he said. The review group was asked to look at the change from kilometres to miles (transposition error), and look at how the adaptation could best be made. The group also recommended that speed limits on the State's roads should be lowered to less than 19 miles per hour (Comment: that is 20 km/h) in special cases, such as outside schools. He said the reason the changeover would take until September was that local authorities would have to review their speed signs. This was the side of the changeover that was going to take time. The local authorities were going to have to see what was needed, and then make proposals. Then the signs would have to be made. Meanwhile, he said there would be a build-up of public information on the changeover from miles to kilometres. The Minister had called it a "mini-euro". On one day in September the changeover would have to be completed. Logistically, it was a huge operation. � The Irish Times As for scales: in shops they are metric. Butchers have been most resistant to metric pricing, but they are giving in now. Metric pricing has been compulsory by law in Ireland since March last. The carpet trade and the tile trade still price in euros per square yard only, because of the 'cheaper look' of such pricing. At least, they did so last summer, when I was in Ireland. Market stalls are overwhelmingly non-metric. I have not seen even one metric scale on the Henry Street market in Dublin city centre. They use very old weighing devices with equally old imperial weights. These will have to replaced sooner or later as they become more unreliable as time goes by. I think that the street markets are left alone for some time because the government may not want to create Metric Martyrs. An anti-metric organization, the Irish Anti-Metric League (IAML) is active, but it seems to be very small.. The URL is http://www.angelfire.com/ok4/iaml/ Han ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mighty Chimp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, 2003-10-27 3:33 Subject: [USMA:27307] Irish Road signs > I have been hearing that the Irish are finally going to convert their speed > signs to metric sometime around June or September of 2004. I have not seen > in print any "official" news release. If anyone here knows anything about > Irish conversion, can someone direct me to a website where an official > statement details the final conversion of road signs? I also understand > there has been a notification sent to the automobile manufacturers > indicating the requirement that new autos have metric speedometer and > odometer instrumentation. Is this correct? When will the first metric > (referring to the speedometer/odometer unit) automobile be available in > Eire, anyone know? > > One more thing. What is the situation regarding the metrication of scales > in Eire? Is the conversion complete, or is it stuch inneutral? Do the > Irish use modern digital scales, or the old-fashioned analog type? > > Thanks, > > Euric > > >
