Most countries today use the metric system. Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States remain the primary holdouts. Australia used to be among them, but it boldly made the switch fifty long years ago. 1974 was a big year for the transport authorities in particular, as they worked to flip the nation from miles to kilometers.
As highlighted by Transport for NSW, the conversion required a great deal of work. The most obvious challenge was in manufacturing and labor. Signs across the nation had to be changed to reflect the new kilometer-based speed limits. But more than that, the population had to be educated about the changes, too.
So how do you get the word out to 6 million drivers across the country? You do what governments do best—you make some adverts, print some brochures, and run a big public information campaign!
This was a very real safety issue. If drivers confused the new kilometer speed limits for miles per hour, they’d be going way too fast. For example, if a driver did 100 mph in a 100 km/h zone, they’d be absolutely flying along at 60 km/h (37 mph) over the limit!
As recorded by the National Film & Sound Archive (NFSA), July 1, 1974 was the big day for Australia’s metric switchover—”M Day.” Authorities prepared by installing thousands of new signs, with over 16,500 installed in New South Wales alone. Many were installed ahead of time and left covered, to be revealed almost immediately once the switch was official. Overall, the full switchover was handled within the month of July.
To help avoid confusion, the switch to metric came with a switch to a new style of signage. Gone were the “SPEED LIMIT” signs that aped the American style. In their place were the new signs, which put the speed in kilometers inside a red circle.
Distance and advisory speed signs changed too. The former had temporary “km” markers installed until 1976 or so, so drivers would realize the signs had been updated. The latter featured the “km/h” units in their design.
In the years leading up to “M Day,” Australian market vehicles started featuring dual-marked speedometers. Drivers weren’t required to change the speedometers in older cars, though they were strongly encouraged to do something.
If you couldn’t find a decal to suit your vehicle, ads and brochures were out there to help you memorize the basic conversions. 60 km/h was the prevailing urban speed limit, roughly equal to the former limit of 35 mph, and 80 km/h was close enough to 50mph. Meanwhile, rural 60 mph limits were now 100 km/h. There were fewer different speed limits in 1974, and speed enforcement was far rarer. Remembering the major conversions in your head was good enough to get by.
By most accounts, the transition was a smooth one. “I was on my provisional license in 1974 and wasn’t too long out of school,’ Barbara K told the NFSA. She was 21 at the time. “By that time, we already had a bit of experience with using the metric system, so I understood it.” Between advertisements across television and radio and newspaper articles explaining the changes, the country got on board in short order.
Switching speed limits was just one part of Australia’s conversion to the metric system. There were so many other changes besides, all under the purview of the Metric Conversion Board. Still, as far as government programs go, it was a remarkably successful one. Indeed, news coverage in many cases was barely a ripple as the government and public simply got on with the job. One article from October 1974 noted that “metric conversion in Australia was well past the point of no return,” barely exceeding an inch of column space in the Canberra Times. In 1981, the job was considered done, and the Board was dissolved just 11 years after it was founded.
Today, you won’t find too many Australians hearkening for a return to the days of miles, gallons, and horsepower. The country embraced the kilometer, liter, and kilowatt with vigor. Some holdouts remain—we still sell tires and TVs in inches, and still measure humans in feet, after all. But by and large, the metric system reigns supreme Down Under to this day.
Image credits: The Metric Conversion Board of Australia, National Film and Sound Archive, State of New South Wales (Transport for NSW), CC BY-SA 4.0, drewzelcat via YouTube screenshot
I feel like any article such as this should at least mention that the US started a metrification program during the Carter administration (although I saw in another comment that it was signed into law by Gerald Ford). Part of that included teaching the metric system in primary schools, which is were I was during those years.
In terms of public-facing changes, all Federal highway distance signs were converted to dual measurements, and car speedometers were likewise required to be dual-measurement. And of course, the military had completely converted, but that was a separate initiative that (AFAIK) had already been completed by 1976.
As we know, metrification ran out of steam during the Reagan administration, and the highway distance signs were eventually changed back to Imperial units. We never got as far as converting speed limits, etc.
Yes, it would have been a pain to accomplish full conversion, but we completely and wastefully squandered what momentum we did have — including a generation of kids who learned Metric at a young age. The government should have just seen it through, even if it took decades.
I do hope to cover the US effort in future!
Reagan again? Who would have thought…
All I could hear listening to that video was “purrah”
The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that’s the way I like it!
Only forty? You should switch to premium hay.
If you can’t spell words like metre or litre correctly then you can’t have metric, simple as that
Never understood some people’s enthusiasm for using French words when the English versions exist, but it takes all kinds I guess.
in Canada, which is a bilingual country (French/English) we tend to use a lot of French spellings just as a matter of course – like centre instead of center. It just comes naturally. BTW, we write cheques instead of checks when paying bills..
Those are British English spellings
No, they’re French spellings. William the Conqueror basically replaced most of England’s aristocracy with French-speaking Normans to consolidate his rule.
Good. I don’t want it anyways.
Question: do you pronounce it “meh-tray”, or “mee-ter”?
Mee-ta/tuh as opposed to meet-ter
I just go with whatever spell cheque gives me.
How many kilometers peraaaaa??
How many burgers are in a kilometer?
Easy. All of them
If we take a regular McDonald’s hamburger as the standard, we can easily figure it out.
The diameter of a McDonald’s hamburger is 10cm. 1 km is 100,000cm, so in 1 km, there are 10,000 burgers.
I keep reading that Myanmar uses miles, so prepped my kids to be confused by the road signs when we went there pre-coup. But nope, everything in kilometres. But most of the cars are right hand drive Japanese imports in a country that drives on the right so there was still room for some bafflement.
Just saying…
In the US, both the military and medical fields have gone about 98.6% metric to blend in with the rest of world.
I guess it makes it easier to kill ‘em and heal ‘em, some say.
My uncle always said that the very last US Industry to convert to metric system would be the construction industry…something about cold dead hands with 2×4 in one and 3/4” pipe in other, as I recall.
Your uncle is probably correct. I’m a software person for a residential building material manufacturer. There’s no shortage of information that supports switching to metric will result in less wasted material and better results. But this industry is very stubborn.
I feel especially bad for our Canadian users because they tend to need to submit plans for review in metric, but order in imperial because the suppliers are primarily US or so influenced by the US market it’s what they sell.
Actually many companies now sell metric shingles in the US.
I work in a facility that administers tests for many disciplines. Several of those test are for civil/building engineers. Recently, a test taker was explaining that the ruler he brings is useless for measurement because it is in metric.
He likes it because it has a nice straight edge.
I run into metric flooring materials often enough that I bought an 11m metric only tape measure on the UK Amazon and had it shipped overseas. I can’t stand the kind with both systems on one tape because it’s difficult to read at a glance and there’s a lot of room for error.
Sometimes they’ll give a nominal size like 6″ x 4′ vinyl planks but they’re actually 120cm x 15cm. But occasionally I’ll run into materials that are neither metric nor Imperial and my guess is that’s the best tolerance their machines can hold for that batch.
In the flooring industry this is mostly because the manufacturers are now global conglomerates, cost is the biggest factor and it’s more expensive to essentially have a custom run of material in Imperial. I wouldn’t be surprised if other trades whose materials are produced overseas go the same way. Although things like the 2x4s and 3/4″ pipe you mentioned will probably stick around forever.
I pretty much grew up with the metric system, but I still can’t visualize building materials or even plans in metric. It’s funny because it seems to be all context.
Building: square feet. Building or material length: feet or inches. Building, say cement: cubic yards or pounds. Distance: metres or kilometres. Food: pounds, oz or litres, rarely kilograms.
In Canada we still refer to liquor as 26ers or 40s, beer in pints and oz, even though both are marked exclusively in metric. Wine, oddly enough, bottles are always referred to in metric but glasses are oz.
Maybe this is why extremism is relatively rare up here? We manage to hold opposing ideas in our minds at the same time without breaking down and crying.
That’s because we never really completed the conversion to metric. We had a phased mandatory conversion program which was abruptly ended by the newly elected Mulroney PCs in 1985.
Had it continued, we would have had a hard metric system like Australia now does. You and I would have been able to easily visualize things in metric, since more than 40 years of using metric would have made that normal in our culture. Square feet and pounds would have been as relevant as miles are today.
(Though to be fair to the Mulroney government, I would imagine the Reagan administration outright reversing metrication in the US had already jeopardized the feasibility of our program)
98.6% in the USA, 37% almost everywhere else.
COTD!
This is pure gold.
I am full for metric when it concerns everything except the speed limit. When you final jump to three digits, it makes it special. 100kph? Bah, that’s on the way to motorway speeds. Big deal. No, when you’re 17 and you cross 100mph on Queen Anne Rood between Woodstock and Wonder Lake in your best friend’s mom’s awful Crhysler minivan, now that’s an occasion.
Holy smokes, now that is hyper-local knowledge I never expected to see on this site! I’ve never thought about going that fast on that road, but huh, it is long and straight enough.
It gets a bit bumpy toward Allendale Road, though. Or it did back in the 90s when I lived there.
35mph = ~56kmh. So they rounded up! If the U.S. did that, they’d round down instead. Which is why I’m opposed to changing our speed limit units.
Are you sure about that? Speed limits have been trending upwards for several decades now…
Makes sense because cars are generally faster and safer and more reliable. In a perfect world highway speed limits should increase to compensate a la 85% rule.
Canada made the change to metric on Labour (Labor) Day weekend in 1977 and it all went smoothly as far as I remember. It had been planned since 1972.
Everybody clued in fairly well. It is a pretty simple transition with easy math.
Unlike Australia we are not entirely surrounded by water and have a lot of US traffic on our roads due to our shared border and even those drivers clued in.
Driving the busy Ontario Highway 401, which is local to me, you see a lot of US plates, both commercial and private vehicles and everybody gets along fine.
I figure US resistance to the change nationally is just a weird identity thing, not getting globalized maybe, the people are are capable if not willing. (-;
Don’t dare to question the freedom units! (eagle screech sound)
>>Red-Tailed Hawk sound.
I’m allegedly grown and still giggle when they play the hawk sound while showing an eagle. Then I heard the actual eagle call and understood why
Chirp chirp.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xwwOWZbZ3oM
I know that. A hawk would be as nice as an eagle as national simbol. And it would not need to be dubbed by another bird.
(eagle screech sound)
Pretty sure that’s a hawk, dude.
America is convinced everything that works perfect everywhere else would never work there because of Reasons.
The Metric Conversion Act of 1975 is an Act of Congress that was signed into law by U.S. President Gerald Ford on December 23, 1975. Then on July 25, 1991, President Bush issued Executive Order 12770, Metric Usage in Federal Government Programs, mandating the transition to metric measurement for all federal agencies.
And I keep hearing that metric units are a left wing atheist plot,
When I visited the grocery stores in Toronto I noticed they were still using lbs for measuring groceries. Is that just a market/food thing or is weight still measured in lbs?
I’m in a different province, but it’s the same thing and it drives me nuts! They legally have to include metric, so it’s there, but they always put meat and fruits/vegetables in lbs. Most likely because the $ number appears lower…
American packaging still has both pounds and grams/ounces and liters.
The pushback came from old conservatives who couldn’t figure out how the Metric system worked, so they claimed that it wasn’t necessary, and was too expensive to make the change. They preferred to just make a fuss instead.
Makes sense. Lb is a smaller unit, so it’s more convenient and results in more whole numbers.
Kinda like how Fahrenheit is more convenient for HVAC because it doesn’t increment in half-degrees.
Canada did a similar thing on their roads in the mid 1970s, metricating road distances and speed limits.
The official transition date for speeds limits here in Ontario Canada occurred on April 1, 1975. I remember it was not big deal as everyone went into caution mode. I bought a little yellow device from my VW dealer which fastened between the speedometer head and the speedometer cable on my Beetle and put the speedo needle on the right value. It worked great, with the downside being that the numbers on the odometer also rolled fast and made you look like the car had travelled a greater distance. I drove my Beetles to death anyway so that didn’t matter.
Interesting, I’ve seen a lot of the speedo cable mounted correction devices, but they are used to correct for changes to the vehicle like a different axle ratio. It does make sense but I’ve never considered it for that application.
Interesting read on how the transition played out over there.
But obligatory WTF is a Kilometer followed by screaching eagles and a cannon loaded with cheeseburgers just like the Founding Fathers intended.
(I’m saying this as I’m designing parts in metric, imperial, and sometimes both)
English? Metric? It doesn’t matter, it is only the 10mm socket that keeps getting away…
Where *is* my 10mm deep socket…?
I think it rolled to my house, I found two deep 10mm in the socket rack on the weekend. No idea where came it from, it wouldn’t tell me. I don’t trust them, they might be gearing up for a mass migration again.
All the 10 mm sockets are cohabitating with the 9/16 sockets in vast underground caverns.
I don’t wanna know how many 10mm sockets I’ve lost. Far too many when it’s the most-used one on my last three cars.
This is why we should stick to imperial. No lost sockets.
No one says, “Where’s my 3/8ths?” So we’re safe.
(Yes, 3/8 inches is smaller than 10mm, but it’s the closest common size.)
People always seem to forget in these discussions that the UK still uses MPH, miles, and yards on its road signs.
For a fun time, rent a van in the Republic of Ireland and constantly panic when you get to the north because you’re never quite sure that you’re doing the speed conversion right in your head. When we got to the hotel that night, I drew up a little conversion chart to put on the dash.
Very similar for us when we went back and forth between the Irelands – especially since my ADHD memory is dogshit.
Because we’d rented (sorry, hired) the car in the Republic, the speedo only showed KMs. My wife held onto our hand-scribbled conversion chart, so every time we approached a built-up area she’d have to remind me how many KMs are in 30 miles.
Jesus, that was a great trip, though! Breathtaking scenery and a tour of the Bushmill’s distillery.
Something something cold dead hands.
Just do what the UK does: speed and distance in imperial, gas sold by the liter, pub beer and milk sold by the pint, everything else metric!
It’s still utter insanity that you measure fuel economy in L/100km but measure distance in miles. I would tear my hair out if I had to do a unit conversion to find out how much fuel I’ll use to get to my destination.
The UK doesn’t use that stupid L/100km measure. That’s a mainland thing. We still use mpg.
And for good measure (pun intended) we use a different size gallon to the Americans, so economy stats (even for the exact same car/engine) are different!
there is a treasured CCTV clip from a Canadian gas station where an American is in total freak mode because his car only burns gallons, not liters
It’s even worse…the gallons are imperial gallons, not US gallons. So the gallons in the UK are larger than the gallons in the US…so not even a 1-1 comparison there…I don’t get it!
now it makes sense why all those UK car ads seemed too optimistic about the fuel economy, even when the car was almost the same (gas engine, displacement and transmission) as its North American counterpart
Are the tabloids still measuring people weights in stones? I had no idea what a stone even was when I lived in the UK in 1999-2000 and it took a few front pages about outrageously lightweight anorexic starlets before I clued in.
Yes I forgot that one. A stone is 14lbs.
Former colonist here. Speaking for all of us, no. Just no.
At least you get a proper 20 fluid ounce pint, in the US the pint is 16 ounces.
And that’s what causes the US gallon size discrepancy compared with the Imperial gallon both are made of eight pints. At sometime somebody figured a pint should have 16 ounces the same as the pound. Probably worked out to a nice profit for somebody. (-;
Fun fact: the US Fluid Ounce is about 4% larger than the Imperial Fluid Ounce.
Also, the US Fluid Ounce was derived from the 1707 British Wine Gallon (231 cubic inches), while the Imperial Fluid Ounce only came about in the 1820’s, based on Parliament changing the definition of a gallon to be the volume of 10 pounds of water.
You might note that we were probably still kinda pissed at Britain for burning down our capitol at that point, hence why we didn’t switch.
Those hands can go ahead and get cold and dead.
Not nearly as complicated and fraught with peril as the conversion from left-hand traffic to right-hand traffic in Sweden back in 1967.
I bet THAT was a fun day!
My understanding is that also went remarkably smoothly, all things considered, due to very careful advance planning and lots of public education. As well as a relatively small number of cars and drivers (all of which sounds pretty similar to Australia, really)
Didn’t Sweden switch the traffic flow in the middle of rush hour to maximize the number of people on the road? Seemed like a good idea to help with muscle memory.
It was 5am on a Sunday, I believe
For most of the country the switchover occurred between 4:50 and 5:00 AM on Sunday, 3 Sept 1967, although some areas had a longer delay so that more complicated local reconfigurations could occur. This date is known as Dagen H (or in English as H-Day), as Högertrafik is Swedish for “right-hand traffic.” Some of us with Swedish cars from 1967 may very well have t-shirts bearing the traffic sign that denotes this. Well, one of us with a Swedish car from 1967 may very well have such a t-shirt:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52548022975_0197f0c229_c.jpg
My dad was 17 and worked the summer installing new signs – they were all covered in tarps until the big day.
There were the lowest number of accidents of the entire year; people knew about it and were all on their best behavior. Plus, most Swedes had driven abroad so it wasn’t exactly novel, while nearly all cars were sold in LHD already for some mysterious reason.
I was going to say, Australia needs to do this next, and stop driving on the left. 😉
I want Japan to do it so we can start getting cool JDM forbidden fruit in LHD. Especially Kei vehicles.
And Samoa went the other way in 2009.
You mean 2.5CM of column space, right?
The pedants might even define it as 0.0254m of column space.
The choice between cm and m depends on whether one is using the cgs or the SI system of metric units, or, as a chemistry professor once explained it to me, the Convenient, God-given System vs. Satan’s Invention.
You mean 25 mm? You silly goose
We don’t measure intellect in geese anymore. Haven’t done that since the middle ages.
I’m intrigued actually that Australia is the only major nation that lists power output for cars (even ICE ones) in kilowatts whereas most of the world remains on horsepower.
Which is better, debate.
Actually, both are bad because both horsepower and kWh are both intended to be used for continuous power output, and we do not rate cars for continuous power output.
But metric horsepower is still the worst.
Personally, I vote for shit tons.
Torque is better.
Because people talk horsepower but actually drive torque.
That’s not very accurate, horsepower is what matters more between the two.
Torque is a measure of how hard your car can move forwards- at 0mph. Useful for pulling stumps, but not at all useful when accelerating onto the freeway or ascending a long, steep highway grade. You need both torque(forwards force) and speed(speed). And guess what you get when you multiply torque and speed? Horsepower!
Also, crankshaft torque is absolutely worthless to compare different cars with when every car has different gearing.
I have driven cars with high horsepower & low torque, and I have driven cars with low horsepower & high torque. Given the option, I would choose the high torque car every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
I don’t want to wring-out my engine at all times just to get a reasonable sensation of tractive power.
Daily – diesel
Track car – gasoline
Agreed, although that is not an issue of peak torque value, it is an issue of at which rpm usable horsepower(and torque) is produced. I do like driving cars which produce strong power at low RPM- I own a Ford 300 and a Jeep 258.
Horsepower numbers are thrown around purely for comparison purposes. Folks who actually care about measuring power output use KW/H or dunno Squirrels/Furlongs in the US
What really fucks me off is this Weird trend where automakers are using PS for some godforsaken reason
I think that’s mostly the Germans/Italians, but PS is quite close to HP (like about 1 or 2 off).
The measurement system that works best in any particular place is the measurement system that the people of that place know the best.
Unless you’re doing trade with the rest of the planet which uses a different system of measurement.
Then you’re adding cost/confusion for your own stubbornness.
Not really, because anyone involved in international trade is going to be using metric regardless, doesn’t have to affect the whole rest of society.
Uh-Huh.
Tell that to the folks in Europe who were tasked with maintaining/repairing the Corvettes that GM tried to sell there alongside Astras and Corsas.
Or the folks here who are selling US tons of coal into the rail cars that run past me to the port where they’re loaded on ships and sold as Metric tons…
Then you have Crude Oil, which is traded in Barrels – which are 42 US gallons, 35 Imperial Gallons, and @159 liters. When it’s refined, the products are sold as liters or gallons, depending on where you stand – so a ship/plane owner needs to bunker/refuel in gallons or liters depending on where their vehicle is located that day.
What a completely bizarre and arbitrary system.
“What a completely bizarre and arbitrary system.”
Yes, but so long as everybody knows how to do math, it doesn’t matter.
I have some news for you about the average math education among the populace…
I was going to say the same thing, most people don’t know how to do the math. The good news is that it doesn’t matter one bit to the majority of people.
You’re correct, but you’re missing the obvious point here: you get to tell everyone you’re much smarter than they are!
Nice try. Swing and a miss.
(I’m agreeing with here! Metric isn’t any less arbitrary, it’s just more systemized)
OK, retracted.
Yeah, but it works. Out of all the real problems to hand wring about or lose sleep over, it’s a total nonissue
^^ YUP ^^
I don’t think anyone is losing sleep over it. But switching from one unit to another is additional work and a potential failure point.
This is exactly what happened in the mid-90’s when the Feds mandated metric design plans for infrastructure projects with federal funding. One number out of thousands (the failure point) would get botched and the result would be delays, cost overruns, and poor workmanship.
They dumped that requirement so fast it made our heads spin.
I always seem to be reminded of the scene in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, where they come to repair the whole in the floor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB6k-fatJmI
Actually, ships and planes refuel by weight, either tons, pounds, or kg. So there’s a unit conversion anyways because you have to go from volume to weight.
This I didn’t know – but it makes sense.
And you’re right – the conversion is from 2000lb tons to Metric tons (whatever they are)
I’m not sure what Corvettes sold in Europe have to do with anything, they are designed in metric with metric fasteners and I’m sure the local service literature tells you how many liters of what specific fluid is required. Many decades ago then yes they would need “special tools” to handle those funny American bolts just like we needed to buy metric tools to service European and Japanese vehicles way back when before the US makers made the switch fully.
Yeah, I measure gasoline in tanks and dollars.
May I suggest that if Washington had perhaps less fever-based dreams…
I will note that the few signs on the NYS Thruway indicating the distance to either Syracuse or Albany in KM were … odd. Perhaps if there had been more than 2 or three in total, or if an entire effort to change to the ‘new maths’ it would have at least felt like someone somewhere was trying to make a difference.
But truly – watch the SNL skit linked above – it explains soooo much in just ~5 minutes.
:scott:
Nah. Metric is superior in every way. People just need to stop being snowflakes and get on with the times.
How would switching to metric for speed or distance be of any value to anyone but sign makers and marketers? While agree for trade purposes you want to standardize units, I don’t see any advantage in spending millions of $$$ on signs and an education program to…what end?
Because the Imperial units are an archaic system that makes no sense whatsoever. Like, what’s so special about 12 (inches to a foot) or 5280 (ft to mile)? I don’t even know how many yards are there in a mile without breaking out a calculator. Compare this to figuring out how many meters are in a kilo. It’s literally right in the name. Once one grasps the definitions of kilo, centi, and milli, that’s like half of the entire metric system right there.
It gets worse when it comes to volumetrics. There is no direct relationship between gallons and cubic feet. Sure there’s a conversion factor but why remember something when one needs not to?
And don’t get me started on mass. There is no mass unit in the Imperial system. Whatever they use now is just fudging.
Mass is the most fundamental entity in the physical world. What’s the point of the Imperial system when it can’t bother?
Imperial needs to die.
You still haven’t made an argument as to what benefit the general public would get from the billions of dollars spent on changing all of the signage and the education program that would be required. The general public will end up with a bigger tax bill, schools will still suck, homelessness and crime will not decrease.
There is exactly no need for the general public to know any of the root math of how many feet, yards, or inches there are in a mile to know that the number on the dash should match the number on the sign, well at least if they choose to be a law abiding citizen, or are afraid of getting a ticket.
Australia made the switch with no fuss or bother. America started, then gave up halfway. It really is not that difficult. Canadians (and most of the rest of humanity on this planet do just fine.
The Metric system is not designed to improve schools, cure homelessness or decrease crime, and it shouldn’t cost much at all to implement, because we are already halfway there.
Good way to miss the point.
It would cost BILLIONS to replace all the street signs with ones stated in KPH and KM. That isn’t even including all the nasty side effects. Signs in the US are made of aluminum sheet, demand of which would skyrocket. That will cause the price of aluminum, sheet specifically and aluminum in general, around the world to increase significantly affecting every product that uses it as well as cause shortages.
That money would have to come from somewhere and of course that would be tax payers. Spending it on street signs is a massive waste of resources that could be used to fix real problems the country is facing.
Just remove all the signs and then you could make billions in fines. Problem solved!
BILLIONS of dollars to replace the signs… someone is exaggerating just a wee bit. Worldwide aluminum shortages bringing about famine, nuclear war and intergalactic catastrophes… ‘E’s probably drinking or smoking a wee bit, as well.
Your argument boils down to “general knowledge has no value.” And I don’t think I have the time and money in the world to educate you on how wrong you are.
You missed the point by a mile, which was that spending Billions on changing street signs is a massive waste of resources and would have wide reaching effects. There are so many different things that would be a better use of those resources and the effects could be positive instead of negative or inconsequential.
In my volunteer work I had a student who had moved to the US from Europe as a young teen. We had a number of conversations about the difficulties she had with the Imperial measurement system and other things that were different in the US.
At first it was extremely difficult for her to conceptualize what say 18″ is or when dealing with drill bits and tools what 7/64″ was and the fact that is was a size between 3/32″ and 1/8″.
Cooking in teaspoons, tablespoons and cups were another thing that took a bit for her to adjust too.
The one thing that didn’t faze her a bit was speed limits, she didn’t have to be able to wrap her head around how many feet, or inches were in a mile, she just needed to understand that if the sign said 35 she should make the needle on the dash point at the little line between the 30 and 40. She absolutely understood that 60 mph was twice as fast as 30 mph and that a F1 car was going really fast at 200 mph. (I guess she got her interest in following F1 from her dad).
When I rented a car in Europe I didn’t have a problem with speed limits because again I knew all I needed to know, make the number on the dash match the number on the sign.
Sorry, I really don’t have the time.
And there is really no point in doing so.
Kids are already taught the metric system in school and all sciences are in metric. It’s only in engineering school when we have to fudge our way back into Imperial because history. Whoever came up with “slugs” deserve to be waterboarded in Gitmo till the end of time.
Why shall we insist on a more complicated, yet inferior system when most countries switched over just fine? This is the USA. We don’t settle for mediocrity… actually we do all the time but let’s aspire for better.
“Like, what’s so special about 12 (inches to a foot)…”
I can measure 1/3 of a foot and 1/4 of a foot with only whole numbers. This is a HUGE advantage.
Everybody acknowledges that this is a huge advantage, including you. This is why a day has 24 hours instead of 10, and an hour has 60 minutes instead of 100. It’s also why a circle has 360 degrees instead of 100.
Or are you going to go on an internet rant about how circles and time are measured with “an archaic system that makes no sense whatsoever”?
I feel a bit weird defending the imperial system, but that’s a great argument: feet are divisible by 2, 3, *and* 4. In metric, you’re almost immediately estimating (actually, relying on the next most precise unit, if possible). Imperial units, like circles (i.e. time in a less well-known form) excel when it comes to division.
That argument makes no sense whatsoever. Mind you, in general, so does the much wider argument of which system of measurement is better.
What argument makes no sense? I’m saying that, if I need to fit three things into one meter(or centimeter, or decimeter, or kilometer, whatever) evenly, I’m hosed because of base ten. If a unit is subdivided into 12s or 3s or 60s or 36s or 360s, that’s not a problem and I can continue in the luxury of whole numbers.
We can all agree that if a foot had seven inches in it, it would be the stupidest thing ever because you would have to bust out fractions or decimals to measure half of anything, or a third, or a quarter, or anything. What I’m saying is that, in this regard, ten is not that much better than seven.
Yup fractions are a wonderful thing and easier in a number of situations.
Umm I beg to differ. Fractions are fine until you need to start calculating with them. Say, what’s 11′-6 1/2 subtracted from 25′-8 3/8?
I can typically remember the decimals of common fractions (e.g. 11/16 is .6875) but it’s just an unnecessary step. More steps mean more possible sources of error.
It’s also a PITA to convert the result back to ft-in format, especially if one insists on having fractionals on the inch. The answer to the example above is 14.15625′. Good luck turning it back to fractional inches without some practice. (It’s 14′-1 7/8)
In metric the above calculation is a 2-second routine.
I just don’t get people’s aversion to decimals. It’s elementary school math FFS. Kids in China are doing PDE in pre-K.
I’m not talking about fractional inches, I’m talking about being able to measure something as 1’4″ if something is 1 1/3 feet long. But if something is 1 1/3 meters long, you’re hosed with repeating digits into infinity. Talk about extra steps, and unnecessary sources of error.
In my day job one digit behind the decimal point is usually sufficient for calculations. When true precision is needed the CAD software can keep track of it better than we ever care to.
Paradoxically it’s the need to keep track of tiny factions of an inch that demands these long strings of decimals. If I don’t carry all these digits I’d never get the answer back to 1/16″ accuracy, even if the dimension involved is hundreds of feet. Often European CAD software has problem with these units and will require manual correction.
Just my experience dealing with both measurement systems since when the presidential candidates were Bush Jr and Gore.
You seem to have completely missed my phrase “I’m not talking about fractional inches”.
We can both agree that long strings of decimals are a bad thing, and to be avoided. That’s what I’m talking about.
If the thing you’re measuring is about a foot long it’s 300mm.
Which you can easily divide by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc.
You mean to say “ignorant, stubborn dumbasses”. We have loads of them in the States. If it weren’t mathematically impossible, I would venture to say that the intelligence of more than half of the population is below average.
Tell that to T.J. when he wrote the Northwest Ordinance.
I’ve been through three attempted metric conversions in my career. The most memorable meltdown was the older technician that was willing to die on the hill that ‘Murica had fought the great war of independence of 1776 against the French to escape metric tyranny. Hats off to the Aussies for getting it done!
Yeah I once knew a guy who swore we fought the French in WW1 and WW2. The white sheets really got to him.
Well, we did fight against some French units in WWII with one of the most notable incidents being a naval engagement at the Algerian port of Oran. But “that guy” is a case of being technically right but realistically incredibly wrong.
Yeah Vichy doesn’t count.
They didn’t have to. They used the metric system, so it was all laid out in decimal terms.
This, there would be morons here who don’t realize that America would use metric if the damn weights hadn’t been lost in a storm.
Sorry but why is no one citing the most relevant, funniest, bestest SNL skit of all time?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYqfVE-fykk
Nobody knows.
I recall the US trying to start this conversion back in late 70’s in Nashville TN area. They switched lots of the signage to have both miles/km, but dont remember if any speed signs were dual. I was many yrs away from driving.
Back in elementary school they taught us the metric system ‘cuz everything was going to change. HA! HA! 40+ yrs later, no change.
There’s plenty of change, and we use the metric system a lot in the US.
Of course we do. Just try and buy a gallon of wine here.
Anything where the US doesn’t throw its weight around is metric. For example many car things are still imperial, but almost everything bicycle is metric.
You keep your grubby metric hands away from my 29er MTB with 2.4″ tires (and 130mm of suspension travel)! (but please I can talk about my gravel bike’s 650b wheel set I had built up to take 47mmm tires!). I do love the hilarity of the mixed measures in MTB tho
What car things are still imperial? Basically every dimension of every car made since 2000 or so is fully metric. With the notable exception of wheel sizes, which are still made in inch sizes by manufacturers the world round, not just US manufacturers.
Weirdly, side post battery bolts are still 3/8″ thread (not just in the U.S.).
But otherwise I’m not aware of any car manufacturer using non-metric fasteners anymore. The Big Three started switching more than 40 years ago, it’s not even a recent development.
Yep. Fellow 70’s child. I can generally think both in metric and US customary for all but temperature.
This was done in a few places; there’s still a few spots you can go in California where CalTrans or the county admins have yet to take down the green highway signs with distances in both km and miles. Metrification on both a state and federal level has been attempted a few times, and it’s never really taken off; it’s worth noting that Australia’s population is about half that of California’s.
And I see the argument that “Trade” matters, but it really doesn’t. The vast majority of people interface with units in a way that makes no difference to anyone else. I drive 5 miles to work and order a pint of beer when I’m done and then go home and set my thermostat to 78F, and… this has no bearing on some dude in Germany who drives 8km to work, orders a half-liter of beer, and then sets his thermostat to 30C. Now, if he’s a guy that does, say, machining for BMW or UI for Bosch, then he may need to know both sets of units (along with a bunch of others; every trade has its own esoteric measurements), but that’s not really any different from the typical American engineer or scientist, who also needs to understand both sets of units for anything that’s going to be operating in a scientific or international setting.
IOW, the whole “international trade” argument is frankly kind of silly; I don’t disagree that metric makes better sense for most things (Celsius I don’t care for, as it lacks the slightly better precision of F), but our lack of using it isn’t really inhibiting the average American citizen from doing his day-to-day activity.
I’m used to both since I work in a construction/mfg environment…all of the equipment/tooling/programs run in metric since made overseas, but customer dwgs/documents are in inch/ft units.
Trade does matter. But it matters less to the US because it’s big and powerful.
I could think of another country that is even bigger and more powerful in international trade.
Guess what system they use?
It matters in the sense that it matters to those who are engaged in international markets and trade – and those people know both systems.
Everyone else in the US, it doesn’t matter at all to. They could be using fathoms and gills as units of measurement.
I was 3 in 1974.I was not driving in 1974.I have no memory of 1974.So, I have nothing of value to contribute to this discussion.It is recommended that you do not read this post, as it (as previously mentioned) contains nothing.TL/DR: Don’t Read.
There, there fellow ’71. The world was there in full color before we were around.
I was 6 and remember something about the President being a filthy, stinking, underhanded, criminal, unconscionable liar. Or something like that.
We have another one of those during the current era, but even worse.
You are not related to WP editor OSX are you? If so, we miss your photos.
Sorry nope. I used to put photos out, I even coded up Histograms for a “photo” website/forum.
But I’ve never touched WordPress (I assume that’s what WP is)
Oh, I meant Wikipedia – but I guess if that was you, you wouldn’t have asked!
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ListFiles/OSX&ilshowall=1
Yeah, we got a WHOLE bunch of other shit to fix before we even start thinking about crap like this.
Speculation but I feel like making this a big priority would create a ton of jobs, even if just for a while. Yeah, the signs can be mass-produced with trivial new job creation, but transporting and installing the signs? Tons of people. Many metric tons, even.
And you know what would happen: blue states would go metric, because progress, and red states would stay Imperial (SAE), because that’s what the Founding Fathers intended (even though a common measurement system wasn’t implemented here until 1832).
In actuality, the US has been incrementally converting to the metric system in most things for 50 years. We’ll get there right after we get our arms around this climate change thing.
Ha, so when there’s no humans left? Because we are never going to get our arms around CC.
The right-wingers should love the Metric temperature scale, because instead of a catastrophic 5 degrees over the average temperature, it would only be a relatively insignificant 2 or so.
Right? Why would we fix small- to medium-sized problems, when we have large-sized problems? We wouldn’t. But we also won’t fix the large-sized problems. So. Problem solved.
That sounds like a problem.
I travelled to Ireland as they were in the middle of their transition from Miles to Kilometers. I was very confused at first that the distance signs were in KM and the speed limits in MPH.