** Caution: EXTERNAL Sender ** This sounds similar to the situation in the United Kingdom. In South Africa, where I lived until 1978, they took a different approach - the metrication office reporters directly to the prime minister and could therefore over-ride other departments. The result, when the South African Metrication Office was dissolved in 1978, its job was done and its remaining functions, which were connected with on-going developments in metrology were taken over by the CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research).
Sent via BT Email App From: Tom Wade via USMA Sent: Dec 15, 2024 at 7:17 PM To: usma@lists.colostate.edu Subject: [USMA 2076] Re: When Speedometers Were Really Dual ** Caution: EXTERNAL Sender ** Hi, I may have played a small part, but I can't claim to have brought it about. It had stalled since the 90's, because the Dept of Industry & Commerce were responsible for the metric transition, but the Dept of Environment were responsible for the road legislation. The former kept setting deadlines, and the latter kept ignoring them and applying for extensions. The situation was that distance signs had mostly been converted to km & m, petrol [gas] was sold by the liter, but speed signs were in MPH. I wrote letters to the national papers, pointing out this absurdity (which was echoed by others). I also got our local TD [Congressman/MP] to table a Parliamentary Query to the minister asking when this anomaly would be resolved. Eventually, there was a government reshuffle, and responsibility for roads (including metrication) was moved to a new Dept of Transport, and a proactive minister there finally set a real deadline within a few months. There was some grumbling from the car industry, as they still had cars in stock with the old displays, but most people were unopposed. In the end, the changeover took about 5 days to replace the speed signs. There was a publicity campaign, and -- uniquely -- our speed signs now explicitly have "km/h" on them so there would be no confusion. It's interesting that there was pretty much no opposition to the idea, whereas in the UK, this would be seen as a contentious issue. This was for a number of reasons. Everyone who started high school since 1970 was educated solely in metric units. There is also no cultural attachment to "Imperial" measurements (if anything the name is somewhat negative here). But mainly because of the fact that the attitude to the EU here is overwhelmingly positive, whereas in the UK, this is not the case. In both countries metrication would be seen largely as an EU led initiative (not entirely accurate in the UK of course, as their decision to go metric predated their membership, and was made as part of a British Commonwealth decision in the 60's, but I doubt if most people are aware of that). Tom Wade tom.w...@tomwade.eu<mailto:tom.w...@tomwade.eu> On 2024-12-14 20:26, Ezra Steinberg wrote: Tom, I think you helped nudge the Irish government to convert road signs to metric. If so, how did you do that? Ezra On Sat, Dec 14, 2024 at 6:16 AM Tom Wade via USMA <usma@lists.colostate.edu<mailto:usma@lists.colostate.edu>> wrote: ** Caution: EXTERNAL Sender ** Same here in Ireland. Before our switchover in 2005, all cars had dual displays. All new cars since that year have km/h only displays. Tom Wade tom dot wade at tomwade dot eu On 2024-12-12 23:53, Stephen Humphreys via USMA wrote: ** Caution: EXTERNAL Sender ** agreed - in fact its hard to find dual gauges now _______________________________________________ USMA mailing list USMA@lists.colostate.edu<mailto:USMA@lists.colostate.edu> https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma ________________________________ _______________________________________________ USMA mailing list USMA@lists.colostate.edu https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma
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