The government actually IS doing a consultation on bringing back imperial measurements!

[Kendodd]

I thought it was a joke.
AIBU to think this is a complete load of bollocks waste of money?

The questions don't even give you the option of saying just keep metric.
Example question -
For Consumers,

a) If you had a choice, would you want to purchase items:

(i) in imperial units?

(ii) in imperial units alongside a metric equivalent?

www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1079711/choice-on-units-of-measurement-markings-and-sales-consultation.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjchIqM1pT4AhXIPsAKHWSZBW0QFnoECAUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw05usEgoqbR2NHfgE3SzAYH

Rental cars in the UK are set up for mph.

The issue is trying to transition from road signs in mph to kph, no way is it possible to change them all overnight. You'd end up having to phase kph in with a period of time some roads being mph others kph.

People then forgetting whats kph and what's mph and screwing it up doing 70mph when it should be 70 kph, which is really 43mph

People getting into a panic thinking "oh shit I've got a hour to get to destination but that sign says it 100 better put the boot down"
But really the sign is 100km so plenty time for them to get there.

Again, tourists going both ways manage to plan their journeys without causing panic car crashes. But I agree that it would be costly and pointless to change the signage here. Nothing wrong with muddling along as we always have. Going 100% metric for no reason would be just as stupid as going Imperial for flag and country

Your missing the point, tourist know it miles / km and have a ferry or tunnel to mark the difference.

The issue is no matter what way you change you'll have people who in the same journey are jumping between miles and km.ie change one section of motorway to km, and the next bits still miles as the signage team are working their way along.

Or the motorway is in Km but the A roads are still miles people will forget whats changed and what hasn't.

The metric system is owned and controlled by a UN agency called the Bureau Internationale des Poids et Mesures (BIPM). It defines the metric system and world-wide, the countries that are signed up to the International Convention of the Metre are bound to follow its definitions. The UK signed in 1875.

The BIPM standards are codified in the technical standards documents of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The ISO document that specifies physical units is ISO 80000, which replaces the earlier ISO 31. The BIPM publishes the SI brochure, which explains the system in detail. Chapter 5 give the details of you write metric symbols.

The principle thing to understand is that abbreviations to the unit names are not allowed. Instead, world-wide standardises symbols are used. Abbreviations are language-specific but symbols, like the arabic numerals, the chemical element symbols, the mathematical symbols e and π are language independent. The unit symbols have been chosen so they can be produced by any typewriter or computer keyboard but THEY ARE NOT TEXT. They are to be written in an upright Roman font and never put into upper case, or italics or bold. They do follow the font of the surrounding text. So, someone writing in Welsh might unse the unit name cilometr for the kilometre and that fine as a piece of text, but they should write the unit symbol as km, even though the Welsh language does not contain the letter k. It's not Welsh text, it's a symbol. If abbreviations were allowed and Welsh people abbreviated kilometre to cm there would be problems. The use of symbols avoids this sort of problem.

They are considered to be mathematical symbols. A physical quantity is considered to be a number multiplied by unit. Twenty-five kilograms is written 25 kg and the space represents the mulltiplaction symbol. The space should not be replaced by a hyphen when used in the adjectival sense. A dog weighing 20 kg is described as a 20 kg dog, not a 20-kg dog. If the unit symbol kg is replaced by the name unit name (kilogram) then we are back normal English text again, so it is OK to talk about a 20-kilogram dog, but not a 20 kg dog.

The gov.uk website is seriously wrong and obviously written by someone with understanding of the SI system.

Ireland switched to complete metrification in 2005, including a change to speed limits and road signs. It wasn't the disaster you would seem to expect. In fact it went very smoothly as people aren't idiots. In your example above the sign would say 100 km, so no confusion.

That's a very interesting question.

From the earliest days in 1965 it was realised that some parts of the metrication process woukd be harder than others and re-doing all the road signs would be expensive. It would have to get past the treasury to be implemented.

In the late 90s, in the run-up to the last round of metrication legislation, there was reckless talk of how much it might cost to do the roads and the figure of one billion pounds was mentioned somewhere. I did a Freedom of Information request to find out what studies the Department of Transport had done on the subject, only to find that they hadn't done anything at all. They had no idea what it would cost.

The Irish switchover to metric roads was done in two stages, several years apart. First the main routes, which were in any case built by EU infrastructure funding, had distances marked km, so no cost there. Then smaller roads were done over a period of years.

For many years they seemed happy to have the speeds in mph and the distances in km. In high tourist season you could have a line of cars behind a foreign tourist doing 50 km/h (30 mph) on a 50 mph section of road and they realised they would have to do something. I remember being at how low the eventual cost was. I think it was something like €7 million. The UK road network is quite a lot larger than the Irish network but I think we're talking about a few tens of of millions of pounds. Certainly nowhere near a billion.

From a Keynesian point of view this is exactly the sort of thing that government should do in a downturn. All the mony is spent in the UK and benefits the UK. More jobs, and the multiplier effect spreads it through the economy. Well worth doing, in my opinion.

Of course British drivers in NI have no choice when they visit Ireland. And I haven't heard anyone in NI clamouring that the Republic should switch to Imperial to make their lives "easier". Well nobody that counts anyway.

I cannot think of a single benefit of changing all the road signs to km when the entire population is used to miles. I can, however, think of a number of far better and much more worthwhile ways to spend tens of millions of taxpayers' money.

"I cannot think of a single benefit of changing all the road signs to km when the entire population is used to miles."

1. A lot of people are very familiar with metric. I work in a large engineering and we do everything in metric. I literally use km every day.
2. Whether you supported Brexit or not the countries on the continent of Europe are our major trading partners and we want to increase the volume of trade. That means more lorries going back and forth, so it makes sense for all of us to use the same standards, and common infrastructure and signage. Continental drivers have never been taught Imperial and many have never heard of it. We finally seem to have learned the lesson that bridge strikes can be reduced by dual-marking bridges but having metric distances would help.
3. We are in a muddle at the moment with fuel sold in litres, roads marked in miles and many people trying to hang onto miles per gallon for fuel calculations.
4. Litres per 100 km (or centilitres per kilometre, cL/km, as I prefer to call it), is a better unit of fuel consumption than miles per gallon. Imagine you have a fleet of vehicles and you want to know the fleet average fuel consumption. You know the fuel consumption of each vehicle. In metric, with consumption measured in cL/km, you just take the average of the individual values. That doesn't work in miles per gallon. Suppose you have just 2 vehicles, with fuel consumption 30 mpg and 50 mpg. The fleet average is not 40 mpg, it is 37.5 mpg. Why? Imagine they both drive 1000 miles. The first vehicle uses 1000/30 = 33.3333 gallons of fuel and the second uses 1000/50 = 20 gallons, for a fleet total of 53.3333 gallons to do 2000 miles. That's 2000/53.3333 = 37.5 mpg.
5. Switching to metric road signs would send a signal to the rest of the world that we are no longer past-obsessed, hankering after the Empire and the days when we were a superpower, but we are now looking to the future and cooperating with our neighbours, our trading partners, and that the days of British exceptionalism are over

Maybe we should change to driving on the right as well.

I think the world has pretty much accepted that in terms of measures, the UK is as muddled as the US. And that's OK, people cope. Where there's demonstrable evidence that metrication has positive safety implications, by all means let's do it. For the rest of it let's leave well enough alone.

And no to driving on the right. That would be a disaster, and it really isn't that hard to change depending on where you are. Whoa, I'm agreeing with @Florenz on something, must have a lie down.

I believe this was seriously considered in the 1960s (I think). I think it's a real shame they didn't do it. There were few roads and vehicles back then and, although difficult, we would have been living with the benefits for decades now. Sweden did change sides.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H

I suppose if we went for full metrication, it would be difficult, but we'd be reaping the benefits forever more.

Changing to driving on the right would cost billions too and for what benefit?

Motorway on and off slips are often different lengths, the acceleration lane (on slip) is longer than the deceleration lane (off slip)

Lots of barriers are on 'z' shaped posts, the corners of the 'z' face the oncoming traffic, rather than the sharper - bit. I can't remember the physics for it, but it wouldn't be an easy or cheap thing to change.

And you also have the issue of people forgetting while the roads are being changed over. Coming off a Left hand road onto a right.

As I said, it was the 1960s this was considered, at the start of the motorway network build. It would have been a lot easier (but still difficult) to do it back then. Unfortunately, I think we've missed the boat on this.

It really wouldn't be that hard to do. Do it gradually over a weekend. On Saturday lorries, buses, vans, motorbikes and other vehicles will switch to to the right, then on Sunday cars will make the switch.

It went surprisingly smoothly in Sweden.
Iceland also changed road sides.
I bet the citizens of both those countries are glad. Even in the 1960s the UK was more densely populated so a more difficult task.

And Czechoslovakia
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switch_to_right-hand_traffic_in_Czechoslovakia

Shame we didn't have the foresight to do it 100 years ago.

Remember every road sign needs changed

Motorway on slips would need lengthened.

Many junctions would also need altered.

Barriers.

It's not as simple as just swapping the side your drive on.

@Kendodd
I definitely think that ship has sailed. If it wasn't viable.in the 60s it will be even less viable 60 years on.

Never been to Sweden but I have toured Iceland, I think as places go it would be fairly easy for them to swap sides.
They have a very basic road network, normal town roads, and one main road that goes round the island. A few sections of it were duel carriageway if I remember correctly.

They don't have miles and miles of motorways, and duel carriageways with complex junctions that would all need altered.

Er....I hope that was a joke!

I'm 45 and was taught metric.

I'm 45 and was taught metric.

I'm 59 and was taught metric.

I'm 46 and was taught metric at school. But my parents made sure I knew and understood imperial as well.

Unlikely to happen, I doubt that people would be able to deal with working in so many number bases! The impact on the computer and calculator industry would be enormous.
I recall many years ago teaching supply in a Primary school, the topic was WW2 and how people lived. I taught money, weight and liquid in imperial measures, the children were amazed that their grandparents had been able to cope with it, many looked at their grandparents with a new respect!