Why kms?

[ColinJ]

Thinking about UK currency decimalisation... I remember people ranting on about it at the time. Save the shilling! That kind of nonsense. Within a couple of years nearly everyone had shut up about it and agreed that it made sense.

It would be the same if we actually finished changing over to the metric system.

As for "We use imperial units in the UK"... I opened a 2 litre bottle of milk at lunchtime and a 500 g bag of pasta this evening. You won't find much mention of horsepower-hours and BTUs these days but you will see a lot of kilowatt-hours and megajoules.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

I agree why km when our cars and road signs are in mph don’t get me wrong I’m not some kind of brexit nutter but we measure in imperial not metric, when I’m in Europe I switch because the road signs are, why would you not pick the default for the country you’re in, doesn’t make sense to me.

also weight myself in stone, lbs and ounces, height in feet and inches because we haven’t changed

I am one of those Brexit nutters (and proud to be one) and I continue to use miles for distances, mostly feet and inches for things like DIY, fluids are measured in ounces pints and gallons, and I mostly measure weight in stones and pounds. It works for me and I can easily do the mental conversions such as what so many stones and pounds is in just pounds, in my head without needing to resort to calculators.
People who have only ever done maths in base 10 systems have never developed the mental dexterity to manipulate imperial units. Those of us who use imperial units on a daily basis have no problem mentally calculating everyday things where the units are in 12's, 14's 16's etc.
Ever noticed that most youngsters who work in shops are really shite at mental arithmetic and have to look at the till all the time to tell them how much change to give the customer? That's the by-product of both metric and calculators. Deal with older people who grew up with imperial units and they are generally way better at doing maths in their heads.

 

[iandg]

I remember all the old codgers in the club moaning when Bart's maps changed from [1/2" to the mile] to [1cm to 1km] - 1:100 000 is so much easier to work with than1:126 720

 

[slowmotion]

I use the units that are on the local road signs. I'm far too lazy to convert from one unit to another if somebody has already done it for me.

 

[slowmotion]

We used to dream of pocket money.

 

[Dayvo]

We used to dream of pocket money.

We used to dream of having pockets.

 

[Notafettler]

You're posh :-).
Sixpences and farthings for me.

Slap round the head for me.....if I was lucky

 

[Notafettler]

Actually,

Anyway ... People can use what they like. I'm happiest with km. I can convert very quickly to miles if needed. I can't convert feet and yards and stuff like that though, I've never had to do that.

It would appear @ColinJ would disagree with you on that....vehemently!

 

[ColinJ]

We used to dream of pocket money.

We used to dream of having pockets.

What...? They actually allowed you to sleep!!!

 

[classic33]

What...? They actually allowed you to sleep!!!

They allowed them to dream!
It is possible to daydream.

 

[andrew_s]

we measure in imperial not metric

Driving distances on major roads, speed limits, and pints for pub beer and some milk bottles are imperial. Everything else is in metric.

If you have imperial measurements available for anything else, you've either made the choice to measure that way yourself, or you've converted the units printed on the pack you bought it in.

If you are cycling, signs on minor roads haven't had distances on for many years, speed limits don't apply, maps have 1 km grid lines on, and what you are interested in is not the distance, but how long it will take, and how tired you'll be when you get there (or, in the case of cars, whether you'll have to fill up).
Since driving times and cycling times are unrelated, there's no reason not to use miles in a car and km on a bike. In either case, the distance to time conversion will be informed by prior experience.

 

[screenman]

I got a half crown for pocket money

I got 2 and sixpence less than that.

 

[MartinQ]

Because imperial measurements are a really poor way of measuring distance. Decimalisation is so much clearer and easier to break down.

We've pretty much done away with feet and inches in manufacturing in favour of millimetres and the only reasons people persist with miles is because of history and the fact it's still how our speed limits and road signs are shown.

But they're French, so rational arguments don't apply. They even stopped us calling Uranus the George star. When will it end ...

 

[steveindenmark]

🇩🇰🇩🇰😁👍

 

[Venod]

I use miles its what I am used to on the road when driving and cycling, I think the metric system is much easier and would have no problem using it if it was to become law. Orienteering was my main sport for many years and that was all km and all modern maps are metric, but when running I used minutes per mile to guage my pace, I don't know what all my cycling friends use but at this time of year a lot of them post their yearly totals on Facebook etc, these are cyclists of all ages and abilities and everyone of them is in miles for the year.