Safe Speed Forums

just looking as a god Citizen and Driver to keep updated as you should and all the stopping distances are in a Foreign Language!

where have all the "Feet" gone?

as a bloke only Educated in Imperial measures (53), how the F**K can I be expected to understand these Metre thingies!, well I dont!, do they do a Free course to enable me to understand my own Coutries new fangled Measurements Please as if not I will be Stuffed as to what my own Highway Code is about

bit unfair if you ask me

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Welcome to the UK, the Land of "Selective Freedoms"

Two points:

Stopping distances in the highway code are incorrect unless you drive a 30 year old motor on cross-ply tyres with all-round drum brakes.

You have clearly managed to run 'The Internet'. So far so good. Try typing 'x metres in feet' into Google. You could do this for all the quoted stopping distances and pen them onto your copy of the HC in less time than it takes you to post some Luddite rant about measurement units. Repeat ten times "Google is my friend". Click Here

thats ok but Kilometers are totaly meaningless and always will be to me, I know what 30 or 40 MPH feels like as for KMH no chance!

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Welcome to the UK, the Land of "Selective Freedoms"

Well I have no idea what x feet/metres looks like exactly whilst I'm driving (my crude Mk1 Eyeball not retrofitted with laser ranging yet), but apparently learning decades old stopping distance figures will stop me going up someone's chuff, go figure!

no probs with the old two second rule but when we have KPH speed limits I will just see the 70 Limit as in MPH, what else after 35 Years of Driving can anyone expect?

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Welcome to the UK, the Land of "Selective Freedoms"

Then I'd advise against driving on the continent!

not on about the Continent, just on about here if ever the Limits go Metric I will be shafted and not my Fault!

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Welcome to the UK, the Land of "Selective Freedoms"

I'm 56.
I was educated in metric.
I've worked in metric since 1966.
Why should I go back to a crappy imperial system that forces you to add sixteenths to tenths ?

50 mph is 80 kph

Even little old ladies buy things in metric now....leaving grown blokes muttering about "bloody metric thingies....what was wrong with quarters"

When the UK finally metracise (new word?) I'm sure they will advertise the conversion factors as they did in Australia back in 1966.

You could then buy some stickers and place them over the MPH numbers (eg. 80 over the 50) and all will be well.

I would have imagined that many speedos on cars in the UK had both readings as you are so close to the continent and metric speed limits.

I still think in inches for short measurements (can't get used to those fandangelled millimeter thingys) but in kilometers for distance - go figure

I think of weight in grams and kilos but height in feet and inches. We poor folk who grew up in the old system still seem to manage though. [old person with stick icon]

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

I've never understood imperials.

feet, inches, yards, survey feet, miles, fathoms, nautical miles, furlongs... That's 8 different measurements for "length". That's only the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Why should I have to know all of these, how long they each are, how many of each go into all the others, etc. when all I want to do is measure a length?

Some imperials change depending on what country you are in! That doesn't make sense.

I prefer standards. One measurement for length, one for weight, one for mass, temperature, duration/time, etc. It makes things a lot easier, more compatible and comparable.

"I'm travelling at 230,000 furlongs per fortnight."

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Andrew.

100 links = 1 chain
10 chains = 1 furlong
8 furlongs = 1 mile
4 inches = 1 hand
22 yards = 1 chain
5.5 yards = 1 rod, pole or perch
4 poles = 1 chain
40 poles = 1 furlong

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

So how did you know what 30 or 40 MPH felt like when you started driving? You learnt and you'll learn KPH. Most speedometers show KPH as well as MPH anyway.



It won't happen overnight. You'll have plenty of time to learn and get used to it.



Again it won't happen over night and there will be a long lead up to it. By then if you don't know 70 means KPH and not MPH you shouldn't be on the road.

You've mastered the internet and forums so why fear this change???



Shouldn't worry though - i thought you were

- http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=114571&highlight=#114571

so what are the odds you'll need to learn the new KPH speed limits?

Besides i can't see they'll make motorways 70 KPH - they'll become 110 KPH or wahtever the 70 MPH equivalent works out at so you'll still be travelling at the same speeds on the roads.

Also are there any solid plans in place to change to KPH?

Exactly. I learnt to drive in a MPH car, i learnt to ride on a MPH motorcycle but my first "proper" bike was a Japanese "grey import" FZR 400 RR with KPH clocks. A few stickers from the bike shop and i had no problems.

Get over it - you're doing yourself a dis-service by putting your own abilities down like this....

And yet we have ended up in the crazy situation where the universal standard unit for mass is defined as a thousand grams, so much for standards!

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Peter Humphries (and a green V8S)

These kids!

Bah, humbug!

they do. enough said.

Too true! They don't know they're born!!

When I started in computing we worked in Pounds, Shillings, Pence and Halfpence - mixed-radix arithmetic with a vengeance!! Actually, we got round it by storing values in binary halfpence and only ever converting it to "external" format if it needed to be printed (no VDUs in those days!!).

Another problem was, t' computer needed an extra couple of shovelfuls of nutty slack if we wanted to do any "long" floating-point calculations...

And you tell that to kids today and they just don't believe you!

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

You'll all have no trouble with MPH to KPH conversion/s.
The speed limit on motorways will still be 70, just 70 KPH and not MPH.
Don't laugh.....there IS talk of lowering ALL speed limits by making the signs mean KPH and not MPH.
30 MPH would be 30 KPH (18.75 MPH) Motorways would be 70 KPH (43.75 MPH)

Which wouldn't be such a bad thing, then everyone would be used to ignoring speed limits and would realise how stupid they are.

Although there aren't many signs on motorways. You just have to... know that... So my relatives from Australia couldn't work out what the legal speed limit was for motorways and thought it was probably 80.

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Andrew.