Dear Martin,
In Australia, we don't have the silly dual measurements that are used
in England where the engineers use millimetres for the sizes of posts,
with metres and kilometres for distances. We have the advantage of a
co-ordinated system that only uses metric units.
An interesting feature of this has occurred in rural areas over the
last few years. Consider two towns called that are linked by a road
called (say) the Geelong-Moorabool Road. Properties along this road
now sport large numbers such as 6540 Geelong-Moorabool Road. This
refers to the distance that the front gate of this farm is from
Geelong in metres. This not only serves as a unique postal address
along this road but it also lets emergency services, such as fire
fighters know exactly how far a property is from their Geelong depot.
By the way, I noticed those metric markers when I was in London for
the UKMA annual meeting.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
Geelong, Australia
On 2009/01/26, at 5:15 AM, Martin Vlietstra wrote:
Another weird and wonderful twist about British road signs is that
those that are intended for use by motorists are in miles while
small marker posts on the side of the roads that are intended for
use by road engineers are in kilometers are posted at 100m
intervals. A real mess you might say. However, with the advent of
the mobile telephone, the emergency services found that very few
motorists realized that positions on motorways could be pinpointed
to within 100m by referring to the small marker posts, so new Driver
Location Signs have been introduced, which are posted at 500m
intervals.
See http://www.highways.gov.uk/business/14730.aspx for a picture of
both. You will notice that the word “kilometre” does not appear
anywhere on that page, though there is a small mention of the word
on the associated FAQ page.
The sign on the off-ramp from the motorway to my home town shows
55.7 in large letters.
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
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