Filed under: Euro, Government/Legal, UK
How nice of them - EU lets Britain keep the mile
What Car is reporting that the European Parliament has graciously agreed to allow Britain to continue using the mile a bit longer. How nice of them. The EU has just passed a broad measure that allows shops to continue to display imperial and metric measures, thus keeping Britain from having to switch their speedometers and road signs to kilometers. The governing body had previously asked for firm dates from Britain and Ireland to make the switch and stop using Imperial measures, and though their neighbors in Ireland have already made the change, Britain remains noncommittal.
We sympathize with our British brethren. If the EU could just walk 1.609344 km in our shoes, they'd know that switching to the metric system would wreak havoc on poetry and songwriting as we know it. Smiles would no longer be the longest word. There would be no more Mile High Club. Denver would lose its Mile High Stadium. Eminem would be crushed upon losing 8 Mile Road. Miles Davis would have to change his name to Kilometers Davis. It would be the end of the world as we know it.
[Source: What Car]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
T 2:35PM (12/18/2008)
damn retarded luddites sticking to the antiquated and wasteful imperial system those brits are. Oh wait, so are we.
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pmalloy4391 3:49PM (12/18/2008)
marijuana... teaching the youth of america the metric system since 1937
McLovin 4:20PM (12/18/2008)
I always buy my weed by the ounce...
Coco 2:38PM (12/18/2008)
Not only that but they should start driving on the correct side of the road. i.e. on the right!
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rypt 3:53PM (12/18/2008)
Atleast we got our steering wheel on the right (corrent) side :)
LeRobert 4:40PM (12/18/2008)
Um... no... driving on the left dates back to the Romans. That was the historical way to arrange opposing directions of traffic. The historical reason for that was so that, when you passed someone coming from the opposite direction, you could defend yourself with a sword (with your right hand). This was the norm until the late 18th century when America decided to purge everything remotely related to Britain, including how traffic was arranged. So technically, only Britain, Japan and a handful of former British colonies still have it correct.
Soccer Mom 4:54PM (12/18/2008)
Actually, it's the other way around. When heavy cavalry had become important and heavily-armed knights had begun participating in tournaments, the rules changed. When knights charged towards each other they kept on the right side of the road. It allowed them to carry a shied with the left hand for protection from the opponent (i.e. incoming traffic) and a lance with the right one. Since then, everyone pretty much adopted the same rules - go on the right side of the road. Britain, Japan and a handful of others - no real logic.
Alexander 2:38PM (12/18/2008)
the metric system is by far better than the imperial, no doubt.
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Mobius_1 3:50PM (12/18/2008)
It's better by miles!
Kitko 3:56PM (12/18/2008)
Yes, and Britain knows that. It has committed ITSELF to go metric in the late 60s but it has never set the deadline. Call it "English way..."
Anyway, that's only pro-forma victory, as ALL British imperial measures are legally defined in metric units. A yard is not defined as I don't know how many inches, but as 0.9144 meter.
What's more, ALL road planning is done in metric system (legal obligation), but, in the infinite British wisdom, all road signs must indicate distances in miles. Legally, a roadsign must be positioned 200 meters ahead of, say, a turn. In practice it means that a sign advertising a turn in 200 yards must be 200 meters ahead of the turn. During my four years in Britain I've never came across a sign Turn in 218.7227 yards.....
And, if I'm not mistaken, certain US federal infrastructure must be planned in metric units too....
sreehemanth 9:26AM (12/19/2008)
One way or the other, these measurement unit systems are for ones understanding of "how much" is a certain measure.
And if the measure is given a unit from a particular system, then it should be treated as a part of the culture that is prevailing in the geographic location of that measurement system.
Having lived in a country that follows the British (EU) system for about 21 years (I am not from Europe, though) and now living in the USA for more than 3 years, following the imperial system (or whatever it is called) is more like a new culture to me.
I respect both the systems and would like to correspond to them according my geographic locations.
Yes, I do agree I may have some bias while using either of the systems for certain tasks, but I would certainly not abuse or hate either for their nature.
Live with what you have, and let others live with what they do. Do not try to overtake theirs, or override yours.
There are several other things to be worried about, to discuss about, and to reform about.
Rick 2:46PM (12/18/2008)
A physics professor of mine back in college would complain that we dare to celebrate the 4th of July, our independence from Britain and its tyrannical king, yet we still use the king's ancient measurement system.
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Mobius_1 3:55PM (12/18/2008)
And their language...
TKE 2:46PM (12/18/2008)
funny post. i've lived in canada and the usa, and metric makes infinitely more sense. however, i'm glad this was news in order to get a chuckle from the post. i still wonder why north of the border we say our height in feet and inches and our weight in pounds.
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Gardiner Westbound 2:47PM (12/18/2008)
Metric fans admire the ease of converting metric units into other metric units, but how good is that? The Imperial system’s rich variety attempts to model the way things are used. A teaspoon is a large pinch, a pint is the amount of beer I want, and a mile is a good stretch o' the legs. Who cares how many yards there are in a mile? If the thing is better measured in feet, use feet; if it's better measured in miles, use miles. If you need to convert between the two haul out a calculator or Google it. Regardless, these are infrequent and uncomplicated tasks.
I prefer a system in which I can live. Imperial measurements are useful approximations of real people and life. Eggheads made metric to be consistent only with itself. It falls short when an attempt is made to connect it with the thing measured. Try to describe how much is in a metric unit. Mumbo jumbo like “a meter is the length of the path traveled by a ray of light in a vacuum in a 1/299,792,458 of a second time interval”, means nothing to most of us. Look for commonsense things like a foot is about the length of your foot, or a yard is about is one step.
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Ian B. 2:56PM (12/18/2008)
Which king of England was it that lent 'his foot' so that we may have a measurement unit? Ridiculous. Time to move on and be the technical society we've evolved into.
On a lighter note, if you have a military or sci-fi movie, it sounds more professional and technical to say, "Target distance is 23 km. Prepare to fire."
Dunc 2:55PM (12/18/2008)
Yeah, it makes sense to you because you have been using it all your life. Obviously I use the imperial system, but the metric system is so much more simple. The temperatures make more sense, too: water boils at 100 degrees C and freezes at 0 degrees. If we adopted the metric system, it would cause mass panic and confusion but eventually it would make sense to everyone.
T 2:57PM (12/18/2008)
imperial system is no more natural than the metric system; it only seems that way because you grew up with it. If you get rid of your nostalgic blinders, and allow a generation of children to grow up with it, the metric system will save the country a tonne of money.
And btw, the origin of the foot has nothing to do with kings or actual human feet, it is as arbitrary as the meter. To top it off, there's at least 30 different sizes of "foot" in the world. As far as current NIST definition of the meter, it is done in reference to the most stable measurable unit of length, sorry if that is too confusing to comprehend.
JakieB 2:58PM (12/18/2008)
Ha Ha, You sound like a caveman!!!
Great job.
cdwrx 2:58PM (12/18/2008)
Yeah, and a shoe size is the length of one barley corn. That's
something I can really live with.