Howe calls for metrication progress
Lord Howe of Aberavon, the former Conservative Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister, intervened in the Queen’s Speech debate on Tuesday to reiterate his call for the Government to complete the...
View ArticleIreland’s road signs revisited
In Ireland, the changeover from Imperial to metric of its highway distance signs began in the 1990s. This was followed by the change of speed limit signs, which took place over a week-end in January...
View ArticleWill EU-US trade agreement bring in metric-only labelling in the US?
A key point of President Obama’s State of the Union address on 13 February was the proposed EU-US trade agreement, which has been under preliminary discussion for the past year. (See...
View ArticleAnother bridge bashed
John Frewen-Lord posted this comment on Metric Views but was unable to add the pictures that he took at the scene. We can, and accordingly we have made it the subject of a short article. “@Charlie P 2...
View ArticleOur awkward, dual measuring instruments
As a consequence of the “very British mess” with measurement policy, the public has to put up with awkward, cluttered, hard-to-read dual measuring instruments. Various types are used every day. In this...
View ArticleCould London bus accident have been prevented?
This weekend we heard the sad news that 26 people were injured when a double-deck bus hit a low bridge in Tottenham, north London. But could this accident have been prevented? The driver of the bus...
View ArticleNew insights into DfT thinking in recent years
In this article, Ronnie Cohen passes on information he has recently received from the Department for Transport (DfT). In April 2017, I received a response to an FOI request that included a document...
View ArticleA wrong turning by British Leyland that led to a dead end
We reprint an article that was first published ten years ago and illustrates the risks of using a mix of metric and Imperial measures. In a recent comment, Charlie P asks: “…. Which areas of UK...
View ArticleDeficits, the global measurement system and global trade
In this article, Ronnie Cohen looks at the deficits of some major economies and asks if apparent reluctance to use the global measurement system is a symptom of a wider problem – adapting to a changed...
View ArticleMuddled measures in car brochures
One of the last bastions of imperial units is our road network and hence car manufacturers’ marketing campaigns. Ronnie Cohen has been looking at some their promotional material. The brochure of a...
View Article