Last year Portsmouth Council, following a demetrication raid on their (illegal) kilometre pedestrian signs, conceded that the mile would be brought back on any new signs to comply with the law - but with metric units added [when asked by the 'Portsmouth News' if their decision was in any way connected with the raid, the answer their press spokesperson gave was: 'It may have had something to do with it'].

A swathe of these new pedestrian signs can now be seen in and around Old Portsmouth and on Southsea seafront.

One of them reads:

' 1/8m - 0.2km '

Are there any other ways Portsmouth can avoid saying 'a couple of hundred yards'?


[NOTE: Neither eighths of a mile nor any reference to metric distances are permitted on direction signs on British public highways - two illegalities on one sign]

Tony Bennett

' 1/8m - 0.2km '

Hmmm, how stupid! By mixing those two measures the logic would dictate that they are trying to say "one eighth of a metre minus 0.2 of a kilometre" !!!

Are these people grade "A" idiots or what?

Why can't they say "fair enough, we lost"?

They sound childish to me

Steveh,

The TSRGD 1994 regs show examples of imperials measures on height and width indications in the following form:

16' - 6"

How does one interpret this, 16 ft 6 ins or 15ft 6 ins?

Presumably 16ft 6in; why are you suggesting 15ft 6in?

It should be written 16'6".
Properly, 16'- 6" means 16' MINUS 6" ie 15'6".

A dash does not have to denote a minus sign; it could just mean a hyphen.

Well, all right, but it's still ambiguous. Not that anyone would really be likely to get confused if they saw it on a sign.

My main "thing" there was the use of "m" for two different things and the use of fractions and decimals. The "minus" thing was more of an "icing on the cake" type thing.

Apologies for the "overuse" of double quotes - someone can confuse them as inches if they want!

Double quotes actually mean "seconds of arc" while single quotes mean "minutes of arc". The correct abreviation for feet is "ft" and for inches is "in".

I recently came across a site relating to sking where the writer gave the hieght of an Italian mountain in feeet (using a single-quote). An Italian reader who lived very close to the mountain concerned interpretted the hieght as being the hieght in metres and posted a correction notice.

"There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And-every-single-one-of-them-is-right!"

For customary units ANY abbreviations customarily used are correct, and ' and " have been used as abbreviations for feet and inches (as well as for minutes and seconds of arc or time) since Adam was a lad. What forms are "correct" for use on traffic signs depends on the regulations, but so far as I can see the answer is that both sets of abbreviations are permitted.

The traffic regulations and the weights and measuures order contradict each other in this respect.

I believe that the weights and measures order came out after the traffic sign regulations (I have not been able to check this) but as they did not specifically supercede the traffic sign regulations, the current traffic sign regulations stand. If HMG wisshes to prevent any confusion (and possibly lay themselves open to ridicule by having a court rule that any new regulations are unlawful) they should ensure that any new regulations must comply with the weights and measures order.

I have it n god authority that your claims ar grossly exagerated. You are liars. Nothing but an attention seeking bunch of self importance attention seeking perverts.

That is out of character for Pip. All posters please remember that the Moderator has access to all URL numbers and can trace the (likely) identity of the poster.