There’s a new one near me for an attraction in 500yds… i dont actually know how far that is without looking up a conversion to miles or km.
Why not just get rid of Yards (whatever the eff one is) and maybe Scotland, GMT and Boris Johnson whilst we are de-cluttering.

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! 😉

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 😉

A par 5

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.

Apparently not for everything…

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

Americans barely use metric for anything, they’re only just getting around to using litre for car engine capacity, instead of cu.in, so now you see muscle cars with 5.7litre, or 6.2, instead of 350cu, or 427cu.
Their paper sizes are bloody stupid; they use A-sizes, but measured in Imperial rather than Metric, so their A4 is a completely different size to the accepted global standard.
We bought a new continuous feed folding machine, and the folding plates had measuring indicators in imperial; it was almost impossible to work out where to set the damned things.
I switch between both, it’s easier for some things in metric, others in imperial.
And I think of a metre as being a yard and a bit for rough estimates. Find it very difficult to imagine any distance in kilometres, though, I just can’t ‘see’ how far a Km actually is.
I’m 60, though, so I have an excuse. 😉

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

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.

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!!

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’