Metric Views

The age of high speed rail finally reaches London on November 14th, when the final section of High Speed 1 - or HS1 to its friends - opens, to complete the link from London to Paris and Brussels. This will cut the travel time to just two and a quarter hours, and even less to Brussels, by allowing high speed operation on the final 39 km of route from near Gravesend in Kent into London. But why have the media missed the opportunity to use even more impressive big numbers?

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The delay in Boeing’s ‘787 Dreamliner project’ has been widely reported. Now an article in The Seattle Times has given rise to speculation about a link between Boeing’s problems and the units of measurement used in the US.

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Martin Vlietstra, a regular contributor to Metric Views, draws our attention to a trial of driver location signs, to be conducted by the Highways Agency. Martin notes that these signs are metric, and draws attention to the explanation for this. 

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The new Highway Code is an example of the consequences of the Britain’s measurement system muddle. Its mixture of units from the imperial and metric systems brings confusion, when clarity should be a foremost requirement. The UK Metric Association (UKMA) has looked forward to the completion of the metric changeover, and produced a simplified, metric version of the Highway Code to illustrate the clarity that one system makes possible. (Press release issued on 27 September) (more…)

When one day the British roads are converted to metric units, drivers will need to get used to distances that are measured in kilometres and speeds that are measured in kilometres per hour (article contributed by Martin Vlietstra). (more…)

Was there any law against metric road signs before the 1970s? asks Kel

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How many people can visualise a kilometre (or a mile for that matter)? asks Martin Vlietstra.

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The world rail speed record was last set on 3 April 2007 by a French TGV train, reaching a speed of 574.8 km/h on a special record-setting attempt on the TGV Est route between Paris and Strasbourg.

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By 1 January 2008, speed limiters will have been fitted to all recently registered, and many older, buses, coaches and goods vehicles over 3.5 tonnes.

[Article by Martin Ward]

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