[Closed] Why do we still use yds on road signs??

Secretary of State made them use miles and yards

If you get rid of yards you get rid of miles?

To expensive to change everything to metric so we are stuck in the past.

Can't do it gradually as our road signs don't specify the units, just the number.

It's not that dissimilar to a metre. Do you know how far a metre is?

Because could you imagine the volume to crap that would erupt from the press, the whingers, the fogies and the knobends if we tried to do something sensible like to properly metric and us km and km/h?

Do you know how far a metre is?

3 hogs heads?

Ok.. 500yds is 457.2m or 0.28 miles. Really useful measurement yards are.

You can't get rid of Scotland yard.

Quite, the point is 500yds is about 500m, or a little bit less. Just put your indicator on sooner than you thought you were going to have to.

Because we're British. Let's have less of that European nonsense in here... We also drive on the right side of the road and serve beer in pints. Imagine asking for 568ml of a pub's best bitter? Just wouldn't sound right! 😉

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You can't get rid of Scotland yard.

Not even from the 19th of September?

Ha Ha! See, I'm fine, I can do both cos I was brought up in Imperial but have also learned metric. 1.61 or .62 are the magic numbers! You should know both cos theyr'e gonna be around for a while.

Because we're Britain. I kinda like the quirky nature of out little island with stuff like this.

If we weren't such a raging jingofest who views the rest of the world as something to be conquered or viewed with intolerence ,Britain would be quite sweet. Our funny little habits like driving on the left or measuring something in yards and others in miles and stones. How lovely is the stone? It's based on some ancient roman brick IIRC but we still cling onto it. So cute.

We could of course go all global and use precise tens, hundreds and thousands to measure everything but how boring is that? I'm happy to continue to resist the global spread of metrication just to retain some individuality. The Americans are sticking to their ridiculous mm/dd/yy nonsense, lets stick to our stones and yards.

As above, huge national expense to make the switch, doing a half arsed combo of both would be confusing, so successive govs stick with what we have. Also as said, it might probably be hugely unpopular and a poisoned chalice re voters. Changing from gallons to litres was fine as the cost was mostly put upon and spread between private companies (same with food changing from lbs/oz to gms/kgs). I think, going on past history, it would be safe to assume, if British roads were mostly privately owned and run, a UK gov might have at some point enforced the switch to km by now.

500 yds. Easy to visualise - a par 5. Accurate enough for most purposes. Or has been said already for roadsign use close enough to 500M.

So for the OP the attraction is half a Km away (roughly).

We put up a road sign once in metres instead of yds and got a sh&tty letter from the "campaign against metrification" telling us we were breaking the law and to change it.

Crazy.

This was in the New Forest mind so I guess I wasn't surprised considering other recent NF threads....

Actually, NASA use imperial measurements for everything. Not only because they are North American but also because 0.33333333 recurring is a very long way out when calculating things like hooking into a planet's orbit for gravitational acceleration.

Imperial may be cute, but it's a damn site more accurate for inter stellar travel 😉

[i]A par 5[/i]

That's even better. Use obscure sporting references to detail distances. That'll confuse Jerry.

'Oh, just head down the high street for a good six, turn left and then follow that road until you've reached the end of the 7th hole at Dundonald. Turn right and the hotel will be a free kick away from you.

Now that you know the attraction near you is 457.2m, or 0.28 miles, are you going to bother having a look ?

Actually, NASA use imperial measurements for everything.

[url= http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter ]Apparently not for everything...[/url]

The Americans are sticking to their ridiculous mm/dd/yy nonsense, lets stick to our stones and yards.

A yard the distance white vans are set to follow you at.

nickdavies - Member
Because we're British. Let's have less of that European nonsense in here... We also drive on the right side of the road

We do?

Think he means 'correct'.

I particularly like this yardage sign - if you don't get it ask someone older

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If they put the sign on the other side of the road, they could've called it a mile

We have to use metric inches when working in the US.... Ten of those to a foot... Makes perfect sense 😐

Actually, NASA use imperial measurements for everything. Not only because they are North American but also because 0.33333333 recurring is a very long way out when calculating things like hooking into a planet's orbit for gravitational acceleration.

Imperial may be cute, but it's a damn site more accurate for inter stellar travel

Not really, they're only ways of measuring the same thing. And 5/16ths of an inch is no more accurate if you actually meant 5.1/16.

I love using imperial. There's nothing wrong with it. Do you want Britain to become exactly like every other country, or continue to enjoy some form of culture and uniqueness?

We can't help it if the rest of the world is wrong.

American pint is smaller than UK pint so drinks are smaller - and gallons of gas too.

lets be bland, lets all be the same as every country. Why don't we all eat the same, I'm sick of try to work out what to order. Why can't we all just say I'll have a Happy Meal.

OK.. well why not just put 0.3 miles instead of 500 yds.
Much easier to measure on your speedo display or satnav. I dont know what cars you lot drive that display distances in yds..

We could do what the Irish did and introduce it gradually. Cycle touring in the tail end of the 20th Century was puzzling, heading for Skibereen say, you'd pass a sign saying 'Skibereen 17', a while later you'd pass another one saying 'Skibereen 18', leading to a frantic map check before realising that one sign was in miles the other in km!!

cloudnine when you approach a junction do you stare at your odometer to ensure you countdown the precise metres to the turning to make sure you don't land in a hedge, or do you, in fact, use the roadsign as a rough guide 'the turnoff is probably in about 15 seconds' and then use your eyes to take the junction? Genuine question... this is how people use roadsigns, and it doesn't matter if they show 500m, yards or decimal points of a mile (which is a total oxymoron by the way).

Prob not many folk can measure in yards, or metres for that.

Would be better if signs said 'just round the bend' or 'beside the field of cows'.

I decided to set my Garmin in metric as though appropriate for a roadie. Does now mean that when I'm asked about how far I've ridden I do a conversion back to miles before answering.

[i]We could do what the Irish did and introduce it gradually. Cycle touring in the tail end of the 20th Century was puzzling, heading for Skibereen say, you'd pass a sign saying 'Skibereen 17', a while later you'd pass another one saying 'Skibereen 18', leading to a frantic map check before realising that one sign was in miles the other in km!![/i]

We could introduce driving on the right hand side like that too. On day 1 all lorries drive on the right, on day 2 cars do it too.

Seems perfect really, 500 yards is a nice round figure, easy to remember

imagine if every time someone asked directions they had to say 'go past the junction and we're four hundred and fifty seven point two metres along the road, on your left'

There was a cracking bit on NASA TV a few years back.

They were trying to install something on the ISS and the American instructions gave measurements in foot/pounds. The only torque wrench they could find was Russian which was calibrated in Newtons/metre. So the astronauts had to wait while somebody on the ground went away and did the conversion calculations for them.

One of the astronauts can be heard to say "I cannot believe we are having this conversation in the 21st century".

I've got no idea how far a kilometre is. If I see a distance in KM, my brain swiftly converts it to miles so it know if it's a long way or not, and roughly how long it's going to take to get there.

Also, my motorbike apparently does 3.3l/100km

Is that good or bad? Who knows....?

But if I tell you that's 85mpg, then everyone on this thread knows instantly that's very good indeed. 🙂

I think it's great - you automatically think "well, a yard is about a metre", but it makes everything a little bit closer than you thought it was.

In Maine, helping my uncle repair his old BMW, I went into a small town hardware store and asked for a M6 tap. The old man behind the counter really said "You're not from 'round here, are you?" 😉

[i] You can't get rid of Scotland yard.

Not even from the 19th of September? [/i]

I think it becomes New Scotland Yard after that.

American pint is smaller than UK pint so drinks are smaller

It would be if drinks were ever served in pints, which they aren't IME (aside from in "English bars" for novelty value). Common is ounces, which of course is different again from our Imperial fluid ounces, or just "small / large". One of the first times I went to a bar in the US I tried to order a pint, and after a bit of confused discussion the bartender went, "oh, you mean a schooner!"

Americans barely use metric for anything,

"Cups." Argh!