Steve has obviously not traveled on any motorways for some years, otherwise he would have noticed the driver location signs (which are in kilometres). Wikipedia has a description - please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_location_signs.
_____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Stephen Humphreys Sent: 14 February 2010 22:33 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:46649] RE: And, by the way...... It's miles and yards, not miles and feet. (apart from - as you said - feet for width and height). I've yet to see my first sighting of a 'km' sign in my travels up and down the UK (and we've travelled extensively). Apart from anything UK cars use what's called a 'milometer' - a British morphing of the term odometer and miles. I don't see how UK cars could make use of distances in a system drivers cannot use on their instrumentation (unless they import a car from abroad - 'grey imports' - although I have seen many subarus bought this way which have had their instruments changed to 'mph only' presumably for the more stricter MoT stations). I've also not seen the use of km in newspapers - except for one paper called 'Metro' which actually has a policy of using metric(!) but even with that they'll bracket imperial (apart from, bizarrely, snow depth which they quote in inches but then bracket 'cm' - maybe they think inches are metric!). In practice the normal daily's will even 'translate' a distance which would ordinarily definitely be in km to miles (eg a report from France). Like domestic BBC new items. _____ From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:46644] And, by the way...... Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 20:42:06 +0000 .....although, again, admittedly rare, newspapers and books in the UK have been known to use kilometres as well as miles. Yes, all signposts on UK public roads are legally required to read in miles and feet (although this is not always the case) but some publcations, particularly newspapers, will happily mix kilometres with miles ----- Original Message ----- From: Stephen <mailto:[email protected]> Davis To: U.S. Metric <mailto:[email protected]> Association Sent: Sunday, February 14, 2010 8:32 PM Subject: [USMA:46643] Re: Burma "I can assure you that almost all publications, and other media outlets, would use miles over here. Based on the non-metrication of our roads I'd guess." Except for private roads of course, which can use metric signs if they wish. And though it is admittedly pretty rare, you can find mixtures of metric and imperial on British road signs....bridge heights, for example, can often be in metres other than, or as well as, feet. A statement on the sorry mess that measurement is in this country, unfortunately. ----- Original Message ----- From: Stephen <mailto:[email protected]> Humphreys To: U.S. Metric <mailto:[email protected]> Association Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2010 7:10 PM Subject: [USMA:46629] Re: Burma Not sure. Some publishers use kiolmetres for international books. Perhaps it's something like that. Like the way 'BBC World' would say 'The accident happened 3 kilometres from the junction' with the exact same feature being broadcast as 'The accident happened 2 miles from the junction' in domestic BBC stations. You mention it as a excerpt - was the spelling 'metER' as you mention or 'metRE'? I can assure you that almost all publications, and other media outlets, would use miles over here. Based on the non-metrication of our roads I'd guess. _____ Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:34:26 +0000 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:46627] Re: Burma But then how does that explain why they gave the distance only in kilometers and not both kilometers and miles? -- Ezra ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Humphreys" <[email protected]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2010 5:40:34 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: [USMA:46622] Re: Burma Ezra:"I noted in one of their (free) excerpts from another part of the book that they referred to the length of a particular railway journey in kilometres, which I presume was done for the benefit of their (UK) readers." Surely you mean 'miles' (UK tracks being in miles and UK citizens usage). km would be there for Australia for example. _____ Not got a Hotmail account? Sign-up now - Free <http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/197222280/direct/01/> _____ We want to hear all your funny, exciting and crazy Hotmail stories. Tell us now <http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/> _____ Not got a Hotmail account? Sign-up <http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/197222280/direct/01/> now - Free
