Transport Department Reverts to Mile - Polidicks

[quote]The mile is making a comeback in official government papers. New Transport Secretary Philip Hammond was horrified to discover that the mile had been ditched - and the kilometre secretly adopted as its replacement - across his department. Official documents and reports prepared by the Transport Department and its agencies referred to distances in the metric rather than the imperial measure. The previous Labour government ditched the mile in favour of the kilometre Mr Hammond has ordered officials to change back to using the mile and barred kilometres, the Daily Mail has learned. 'Common sense has returned,' a source said. 'It is barmy that the last government used kilometres when everyone else in the country uses miles. 'Philip Hammond has kiboshed the kilometre and banned it from being used in departmental reports.' Official statistics on road lengths, traffic, freight, road casualty rates, the railways and aviation are being changed back to miles. The mile is a Roman unit, derived from 'mille', the Latin word for 'thousand'. It was calculated from the distance a soldier marched in 1,000 paces. Read more: [url]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1284560/End-road-Labours-kilometre-mile-makes-comeback.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#ixzz0qAW7OW50[/url][/quote] Just as I thought this country was progressing somewhere. :sigh: [url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1284560/End-road-Labours-kilometre-mile-makes-comeback.html?ito=feeds-newsxml]Source.[/url] [editline]01:13PM[/editline] also loldailymail

It's weird. We use metric for everything in the UK, even using metres, but we also use miles. Crazy stuff.

Wat In the U.S. I can understand because a lot of people here don't know Metric that well. But don't you all use Metric over there?

I understand miles though, the road signs are in miles, the trip counters in cars are in miles and their speedometers are in MPH, I don't think we should go to KM/H just because it's part of the metric system

I prefer miles.

Still use Kilometre here in Australia, thank christ.

How many european countries use miles? I'm just curious about who still does this.

[QUOTE=Devodiere;22438340]How many european countries use miles? I'm just curious about who still does this.[/QUOTE] All EU countries use the metric system exclusively. The UK has a sort of hybrid system where we use metric for some things and imperial for others. This is completely arbitrary. It's all part of a giant conspiracy to confuse foreigners. [editline]01:30PM[/editline] [quote]common sense has returned[/quote] Yes because multiplying and dividing everything by 1760 makes perfect sense amirite?

[QUOTE=xDrTran;22438327]Still use Kilometre here in Australia, thank christ.[/QUOTE] Still? We moved from miles ages ago. I think we mean, we use.

Miles per hour sounds way cooler than kilometers per hour. We use metric for pretty much everything else though, imperial is such an obsolete measurement system, its just that using the metric system on roads seems somewhat boring :)

Metric system is for the cool kids. [editline]03:41PM[/editline] aka all of the world except some dumbshits

[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;22438419]All EU countries use the metric system exclusively. The UK has a sort of hybrid system where we use metric for some things and imperial for others. This is completely arbitrary. [B]It's all part of a giant conspiracy to confuse foreigners.[/B] [editline]01:30PM[/editline] Yes because multiplying and dividing everything by 1760 makes perfect sense amirite?[/QUOTE] You mean like back when the UK had like 12 pence per a shilling and 20 shilings per pound being like 240 Pence to make 1 pound ?

I use 'miles' whenever writing fiction, because saying something is 'kilometers away' is like a cheesegrater on my eyes, but 'miles away' is fine. But still, I just don't get why anyone uses the Imperial system. It's based on feet, for crying out loud. And for some reason someone decided to divide by twelve to get a smaller measurement, and then leave it there until they tried to shoehorn the millimeter in. Just make everything a multiple of ten, it makes the maths a fuckload easier.

I use both :moustache:

It's ridiculous really the UK was supposed to have eradicated use of imperial measurements by 1976 but still have 3 official non metric measurements and many more backwards measurements are still being used by the peasants

[QUOTE=Leg of Doom;22439221]It's ridiculous really the UK was supposed to have eradicated use of imperial measurements by 1976 but still have 3 official non metric measurements and many more backwards measurements are still being used by the peasants[/QUOTE] It's not cheap to go around changing all the road signs

[QUOTE=lulzbocks;22438282]Wat In the U.S. I can understand because a lot of people here don't know Metric that well. But don't you all use Metric over there?[/QUOTE] do people in the u.s. know anything?

metric is awesome. kilometres make more sense than miles

SI is much better than any imperial measurement. Suffer.

[QUOTE=matt.ant;22440723]It's not cheap to go around changing all the road signs[/QUOTE] Road signs get replaced every once in a while anyway, what you do is change the measurement as you go through the routine replacement schedules.

I don't even [i]get[/i] miles. It's such an arbitrary measurement. I mean, kilometer = 1,000 meters. Real simple. But a mile is 1760 feet, or 1,609 meters . . . what? How the hell do you even label something like that? Is one mile 20,000 inches or something? It hurts my head.

[QUOTE=Exploits;22441449]I don't even [i]get[/i] miles. It's such an arbitrary measurement. I mean, kilometer = 1,000 meters. Real simple. But a mile is 1760 feet, or 1,609 meters . . . what? How the hell do you even label something like that? Is one mile 20,000 inches or something? It hurts my head.[/QUOTE] Miles is easier to say than kilometers and most people don't bother converting miles into yards or feet in a general sense so I don't see much problem. Besides, a lot of people are more used to using miles and miles per hour as a unit instead of kilometers and kilometers per hour. Sure, imperial is worse than metric - but having miles as a solitary measurement unit ain't the end of the world. If you really wanted to use kilometers, you could use the old method of just multiplying miles by 1.6.

[QUOTE=Kai-ryuu;22441606]Sure, imperial is worse than metric - but having miles as a solitary measurement unit ain't the end of the world. If you really wanted to use kilometers, you could use the old method of just multiplying miles by 1.6.[/QUOTE] I already do this, as a Canadian forced to deal with Americans. >:

There should be no other measurement system other than metric.

The UK still uses miles on the road, but everything else is metric now (Apart from human heights and weights, but that's a social thing)

In fairness, given that we use miles for roads and speedometers anyway, this does make much more sense. Granted, just converting everything to metric would be better, but I digress.

[QUOTE=/Syntax;22438781]I use 'miles' whenever writing fiction, because saying something is 'kilometers away' is like a cheesegrater on my eyes, but 'miles away' is fine. But still, I just don't get why anyone uses the Imperial system. It's based on feet, for crying out loud. And for some reason someone decided to divide by twelve to get a smaller measurement, and then leave it there until they tried to shoehorn the millimeter in. Just make everything a multiple of ten, it makes the maths a fuckload easier.[/QUOTE] Metric is most definitely better, but theres a good argument for having a number system based on a base 12 rather than 10 digits. Think about it; what goes in to do 2 and 5 right? What goes into 12? 2, 3, 4 and 6. Why do you think the clock has 12 hours?

[QUOTE=ThePunisher1;22438514]Miles per hour sounds way cooler than kilometers per hour. We use metric for pretty much everything else though, imperial is such an obsolete measurement system, its just that using the metric system on roads seems somewhat boring :)[/QUOTE] Kilometres per hour makes it sound like you're going faster though. Wich is cool :smug:

[QUOTE=DogGunn;22441329]SI is much better than any imperial measurement. Suffer.[/QUOTE] Although I agree to most of that, I prefer miles.

[QUOTE=lulzbocks;22438282]Wat In the U.S. I can understand because a lot of people here don't know Metric that well. But don't you all use Metric over there?[/QUOTE] Actually the US Federal government uses metric almost entirely. The Federal government simply doesn't have the power to push the change down the pipe onto the states. Which is a good thing, though it does mean our measurement system is a little backwards. But ultimately it's a small price to pay.