This confusion is because Canada did not adopt international speed limit signs that use red circles, but instead just changed from mph to km/h on their signs without the circle. The US plan was to go to the signs with a circle, but use black instead of read. But all of that has been shelved for now.
From: USMA <usma-boun...@lists.colostate.edu> On Behalf Of John Steele Sent: Wednesday, 19 July, 2023 10:17 To: USMA List Server <usma@lists.colostate.edu>; Michael Payne <metricmik...@gmail.com> Subject: [USMA 1956] Re: Confusion on Units ** Caution: EXTERNAL Sender ** This confusion also exists between the US and Canada; both use a rather similar sign style with "naked numbers," no units. In the US, the top line says "SPEED LIMIT," and uses miles per hour. In Canada, the top line says "MAXIMUM," and uses km/h. Although not required, some provinces use a version of the sign with units below the number, especially near the border with the US. On Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 11:28:16 AM EDT, Michael Payne <metricmik...@gmail.com<mailto:metricmik...@gmail.com>> wrote: ** Caution: EXTERNAL Sender ** For your newsletter. My sister lives in Australia and visited me recently, she related a visit she'd made to the UK in the year 2000. She was in Edinburgh Scotland and had to drive to Bristol to visit someone. She rented a car and headed off, having been told it would take about 7 hours to do the 587 km trip. She arrived early, the journey took about 3h35. She had a discussion with the friend in Bristol about how she could do this in the time it took? She then realized she had been doing 100 mph because she had forgotten it was miles in the UK and she thought it was km/h on the speedo, 100 km/h was normal in Australia, so she guessed it was the same in the UK. She cruised along quite happily at 100 mph (160 km/h) thinking it was 100 km/h, no one stopped her and she never gave it a thought until she arrived early, in record time. Normally speed limits on motorways in the UK do not have posted speed limits, it's assumed everyone knows they are 70 mph (112 km/h). If the police had been around that day I'm sure she would have been in trouble, but no one noticed. Easy to do if you are used to only metric units. I'm sure there are millions of confused people from around the globe who visit the UK and USA who may well do the same thing. Mike Payne France _______________________________________________ USMA mailing list USMA@lists.colostate.edu<mailto:USMA@lists.colostate.edu> https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma
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