Metric Speed Signs

daggeredge

anybody with a speedo in miles in a couple of years is going to look SO outdated!

I think it could be the power of lobbying by the car companies to change it (because of the irish fascination with being ahead and having the newest!!!! and the fact they want to sell more cars)

I refer you to the fact we're the only country in the world that i know of with the year as part of the licence plate!!! And if you have a '03 car??? what have you been doing??? you could be like most of my neighbours and buy the same color, model, spec, options for 7k more all for the sake of pushing the plate up a digit!!

I also refer you to the NCT, funnily enough new car sales shot up after this & the irish fascination with buying older cars (more than 2 years old anyway)died....

In Canada they had a similar system and it was scrapped cos it was CONTRACTED (seem familiar?) out and the company were failing cars for the most minor of offences, just to get more money

If you drive a Yaris you can avoid this speedo thing though... only car I know of with a button to change the digital speedo from miles to km... (don't drive one... have a micra)

I for one question the power the car companies have over the Government and wonder why we don't learn from other countries and follow up on some of their better ideas (drivers ed in USA for example)

BrianD

In Sydney down under, once the hazard lights come on a public bus then the speed limit changes to 40KPH. They even have a 40 sign painted on the bus.

PBC_1966

BrianD wrote:

In Sydney down under, once the hazard lights come on a public bus then the speed limit changes to 40KPH.

For anyone not aware of this, in the U.S. traffic is required to stop completely while a school bus is picking up or letting off children. They usually turn on amber flashing lights just prior to stopping, then they change to red front and back as it pulls up. On many buses a STOP sign also swings out from the left hand side. The requirement to stop is taken very seriously.

daggeredge wrote:

I refer you to the fact we're the only country in the world that i know of with the year as part of the licence plate!!!

The year has been part of U.K. registrations for the last 40 years, first as a suffix letter, then a prefix letter, and now as two digits in the middle.

It's always struck me as being totally unnecessary. The letter depends upon the date of first registration, not the date the car was made anyway. As you point out, it results in ridiculous one-upmanship between some people as they could buy two cars which came off the production line the same day, yet one registered on August 1 would get, say, an S registration while the one registered on July 31 would be R. (The current system changes every 6 months rather than every year.)

mackerski

PBC_1966 wrote:

Maybe you don't realize that according to our government, we are not free to continue our business in Imperial. That's the whole point. They have made it a criminal offense to use Imperial measures in shops.

Not exactly - it was always an offence to sell loose goods using unapproved measures. Over the ages, the weights and measures people have enforced different rules on what units were approved. Most obsolete measures appear to have vanished without a whimper. Unfortunately, even though the UK metrication originally had nothing to do with the Common Market (as it was) and, was, I believe, in the 60s, even driven by a Tory government, obstinate opposition to the use of sane measures is now seen as a useful badge of eurosceptic identity.

Your "metric martyrs" were prosecuted for using weights or weighing apparatus whose official seals had been struck off. Now, you might feel that it would convey additional freedom on you to be allowed to negotiate the purchase of a pound of apples. My feeling is that you'd be far safer going for 450g or thereabouts, since at least the crown on the weights used would tell you you weren't being diddled. That, after all, is the whole point of having approved measures and penalties for those that neglect to use them.

Dermot