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this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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And expensive. Imagine the cost of changing the entire road network over to use metric.
I'd love to see it but the money could go on far better things.
Ireland did it in 2005. I don't remember the cost being an issue at the time. I mean obviously it cost some non trivial amount but I don't recall any Hullabaloo about it. Wikipedia page doesn't mention the cost.
Here's a zero-cost plan to migrate the road network over to metric: have a transition period where signs may be shown in either unit, then require all replacement signs to be shown as metric. Since all signs must eventually be replaced, over a long enough period of time the whole network will become metric without any marginal cost increase.
The only downside is that for a time, people have to understand both units and how they relate to each other.
You'd also need a separate type of sign for kph, but one that still adhers to the current standard (white cirle with a red border and a black number). Or put a separate rectangular sign under it with "kph" to denote that the number in the circle is kph rather than mph.
The problem is that you can't just replace one, you'd need to replace them all on the road due to the repeater signs. It would be confusing to see some say 60 and others 30 on the same stretch of road as some repeater signs have been replaced but others haven't.
There'd also be the issue of cars understanding the signs with their sign recognition software, and drivers having to switch their digital spedo, as you usually only see one unit rather than both like on older anaologue speedos.
Sounds logical on a just consider it level.
But us old farts know better.
The nation went metric in 1965 joined the EU in 1975.
You know how all road signs are reflective. Well, back then that did not exist. Reflective roadsigns started in the early 1980s.
Add to that, most major roads end up replacing the signs every several years.
And the simple fact is No If in the 80s we decided to double sign (as other nations did. Every nation in the EU did it at some point. France was well before road signs, 1795 I think. But the rest of the EU could not agree on anything before the 1940s. Almost all of them had their own versions of imperial like units divided over regions based on political power.
It was not until the early predecessor to the EU post ww2 that most of Europe changed.
If we started in 1980 by displaying km plus mph on all signs. (Rounded to the nearest unit). The original change would not have cost any more than current spending. Buy now, most major roads would have had many replacements, likely dropping the mph.
We would still see some dual signs in very low use back roads.
But when did you last see a non-reflective sign. Because that is as often as you would see MPH only signs. At 0 extra spending.
"Minister, we have a cunning way to lower the speed limits, and go metric, at the same time..."
Not just the speed limits that need changing, basically any sign with a distance on it too.
Unfortunately, only local auth councillors tend to have any interest in lowering the limit.
Well at least since 1967 when the M1 was first given the perm 70mph limit.