On the A 3057, about one mile north of Romsey, a large, sqaure, white-on-red road traffic sign reads: 'Danger Concealed Entrance 100 yds'.

It used to read: 'Danger Concealed Entrance 50 mtrs', until local resident Michael Wigley took up the case with Hampshire Highways Department.

The Council eventually corrected the sign themselves after six months or so of the the usual hum-ing and ha-ing, i.e. they changed it through gritted teeth after exhausting all the usual excuses for not doing anything.

Seems we got greater accuracy as well as moving from illegality to legality

50 m to 100 yds? That is a bit of a stretch. What is the actual exact distance?

An ARM inspection revealed the distance from the formerly illegal road sign to the concealed entrance to be in the region of 75 to 80 yards.

A key feature of how British people describe distances is the use of approximations, e.g. 'couple of hundred yards', 'half a mile', or 'a country mile'. There are now some absurd signs on British roads, like 'Humps for 514 yards'. These are mostly conversions to yards from metres - because local authorities, by order of the European Union, have to do their sums in metres and then convert them to yards for the people to understand and comply with the law!

In the above example, '500 yards' is all one needs, or, better, '1/4 mile'.

Where British authorities have erected metric signs, they tend to use very precise distances, which quite apart from being in metres and therefore unfamiliar are so exact that they detract from estimating the actual distance.

The most absurd example I've found to date was at the Robert Burns Centre in Ayr, where there is a fingerpost sign to the local Parish church, from the centre, saying '767 metres'.

It's better to use simple language on signs like '1/4 mile' and '1/2 mile'.

Most people understand that, for example, to walk quarter of a mile takes 5 minutes, half a mile 10 minutes, a mile 20 minutes and so on.

Easy

Tony Bennett wrote

<<
These are mostly conversions to yards from metres - because local authorities, by order of the European Union, have to do their sums in metres and then convert them to yards for the people to understand and comply with the law!
>>
The metrication process in Britain was started before Brtiain joined the EU. It was planned that the roads would be metricated in the late 1970's or early 1980's but them Mrs Thatcher whinged so much (the original whinging Pom!) and threatened to disrupt EU procedings that it was agreed to permit the UK (and EIre) to use miles, yards, feet and inches on road signs. Mrs Thatcher then renaged upon the agreements by not using the symbols that were agreed.


He also wrote
<<
Most people understand that, for example, to walk quarter of a mile takes 5 minutes, half a mile 10 minutes, a mile 20 minutes and so on.
>>

THe above formula works for a gentle walk. For a brisk walk, using 100m/min works better.

re (martin): "The metrication process in Britain was started before Brtiain joined the EU. It was planned that the roads would be metricated in the late 1970s or early 1980s, but then Mrs Thatcher whinged so much (the original whinging Pom!) and threatened to disrupt EU proceedings that it was agreed to permit the UK (and Eire) to use miles, yards, feet and inches on road signs. Mrs Thatcher then reneged upon the agreements by not using the symbols that were agreed"


REPLY: This is a tad unfair to Mrs Thatcher. Not only did she save us one-billion-pounds-plus by deferring indefinitely the unnecessary metrication of our roads, she also in 1986 negotiated with the European Union the so-called 'Thatcher rebate', then worth around £2 billion a year, to compensate the United Kingdom for the huge contributions we were making to support the running of the E.U.

At current prices, it has been conservatively estimated that this has saved the country, to date, at least £90 billion. No wonder the other E.U. countries want to end it. Enough to pay for metrication of our road signs and still have change left over

Tony,

Martin has a big grudge against Margaret Thatcher - look at how many times he brings her up in his post.

Also realise that his grudge is purely based upon her populist view of what Brits want regarding measurements.

It still chokes me today that she allowed gallons to be replaced by litres - considering her conviction (And our continual use of MPG).

(cue the price hike theory...)

If the actual distance is less than 100 yds, I think rounding it to the nearest 100 yds is a bit much. I would have said 80 yds.

<<
Mrs Thatcher then renaged upon the agreements by not using the symbols that were agreed.
>>
So there were no road signs in Britain before this time? Or did she renage upon the agreements by not changing the signs to the symbols that were agreed?

Bud wrote

<<
So there were no road signs in Britain before this time? Or did she renage upon the agreements by not changing the signs to the symbols that were agreed?
>>

She did not change the signs as agreed. The requreid changes were:

1. "Miles" should be spelt out in full, but UK legislation allows "m" to be used, a symbol which by international convention and by the EU directive is reserved for "metres".

2. "Tonnes" should be represented by the symbol "t". Legislation allows "T" to be used, a symbol that by international convention and by the EU directive is reserved for "Teslas".

3. "Feet" and "inches" should be represented by the symbols "ft" and "in". Instead they are represented by single and double apostrophes - symbols that by internation convention and by the EU directive is reserved for minutes and seconds of arc.

...so Bud, as you can imagine there are these drivers that go around in Britain stamping on their brakes when the sign says "Birmingham 6m" and also whenever one of our trucks tries to navigate a low bridge he immediately whips out his geometry set.

As for when people try to cross a river over a bridge we tend to jump out of our cars and shout "SEVEN TESLAS??? What the **** is a tesla?"

And you see *THATS* why we have the safest roads in Britain - because we're all terrified to drive incase a tesla or arc drops on us!!

<<<And you see *THATS* why we have the safest roads in Britain* - because we're all terrified to drive incase a tesla or arc drops on us!! >>>

*Oops! I meant Europe!

OK, common sense suggests that there is little problem is having "incorrect" signs, but if a smart lawyer is defending a lorry driver who has taken a short cut and who risks losing his licence if found guilty uses this as a defense, he stands a godd chance of winning and thereby rendering all the weight-restriction signs in the country invalid.

What makes me *really doubt* that?

Next people will be getting away with murder because they used a 6" knife instead of a 15cm one!

re (martin):

1. "Miles" should be spelt out in full, but UK legislation allows "m" to be used, a symbol which by international convention and by the EU directive is reserved for "metres".

2. "Tonnes" should be represented by the symbol "t". Legislation allows "T" to be used, a symbol that by international convention and by the EU directive is reserved for "Teslas".

3. "Feet" and "inches" should be represented by the symbols "ft" and "in". Instead they are represented by single and double apostrophes - symbols that by internation convention and by the EU directive is reserved for minutes and seconds of arc.

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Ach so? So in ze Vereingigte Kingdom zey hav been verbreaking Europaeische laws fur vier und zwanzig Jahren! I vill schreiben to ze President of ze Europaeische Commission zis Nacht und demand zat ze Vereinigte Kingdom is gepunished appropriately i.e. *strengstens*.

Und warum haben sie noch in der Vereinigte Kingdom der 'Pint' von Milch und Bier? Und 'Miles' und 'Yards'? Vot is ze Europaeische und der international symbol fur 'Yards'? Martin has das nicht gesagt. Gibt es einer solche symbol? Was ist es?

Strengstens disgusted,

Berlin

Tony,

May I refer you to

http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/de/consleg/pdf/1980/de_1980L0181_do_001.pdf

to

http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/fr/consleg/pdf/1980/fr_1980L0181_do_001.pdf

or to

http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/el/consleg/pdf/1980/el_1980L0181_do_001.pdf
where you will see that the agreed European Symbol for the yard is "yd" and that the symbol for the pint is "pt".

So Mrs. Thatcher did not make the changes that the EU obligated her to make. This is a classic example of legislative stupidity... passing rules without thinking. What would be the benefit of converting ' and " to ft and in.? Feet and inches are not used anywhere in Europe, no one could possibly interpret these signs as minutes and seconds, and the drivers are already familiar with them. Same goes for changing yds to yd. No sense whatsoever in doing so.
Of Mrs. Thatcher's obligations that Martin listed, only the one regarding "m" for "miles" seems reasonable.
Of course, when the EU was deciding on the symbols for yards, they had no idea that their regulations could be applied to Britain's road signs, and probably haven't yet.
And why does Europe need internationally agreed symbols for yards and pints if they are only used in one country? And if a symbol is needed, why not use the symbol that is most widely used in the only country in which those units are commonly used?

And why does Europe need internationally agreed symbols for yards and pints if they are only used in one country? And if a symbol is needed, why not use the symbol that is most widely used in the only country in which those units are commonly used?



Bud,

1. The people responsible for actually making the changes were British representatives at the EU meetings.

2. If you consult the references that I have been given, you will see that the only places whre yards have been mandated are road signs and the measurement of distance and length.

3. The whole purpose of the EU directive was to ensure that the same symbols were used consistently across Europe. One of the other effects of the EU directive was that the Dutch ceased using the "pond" on their market stalls, the Germans the "pfund", the French the "livre", the Italians the "libra" and so on - all now use exactly the same symbol - the kg.

So are you saying that British representatives at the EU meetings, knowing quite well that "yds" and '" were used on road signs throughout the UK, wrote the directive to require "yd" and "ft in"?

And remember that it would be much easier for the French to switch from livres to kg than for the British to switch from lb to kg, because the livre was based on the kg already (I believe it was 0.5 kg). I think the gram was also already used in France, please correct me if I'm wrong. So it was simply a matter of halving all the figures from livres to kg. For Britain, it would be a matter of changing from 16 divisions to decimal and changing the actual quantities in order to obtain round metric figures.

Yes Bud, it probably was the British representatives who actually wrote the relevant sections.

What I believe happened was that Mrs Thatcher was trying to worm her way out of the directive altogether, found that she could not do so, so she (and her officials) hastily negotiated a few bodges.

Bud wrote: "And remember that it would be much easier for the French to switch from livres to kg than for the British to switch from lb to kg, because the livre was based on the kg already (I believe it was 0.5 kg). I think the gram was also already used in France, please correct me if I'm wrong."

Not true. It was only after the invention of the metric system that the Paris livre was redefined as exactly 0.5 kg. Grammes weren't in use before the metric system was designed. People used "onces". There were 16 "onces" to the livre and 8 "gros" to the "once". 1 "gros" consisted of 72 grains.

Can you imagine some poor sod having to go around attaching an "i" to all those "m"s on all our signs?

Then someone would have to do a quality check on all those signs to make sure they passed their "i" tests!

And can you imagine all the traffic jams as a result of the poor sod obstructing the view of the signs while he did his work? He would end up having a really high I.Q.

re (martin) "...the European Union symbol for the pint is "pt".

REPLY:

Martin, as ever most grateful for your prompt and helpful information.

I've got this Atlas upstairs and always wondered what some of the abbreviations meant.

Now I understand.

I looked at the Isle of Wight and at the southern tip is St. Catherine's Pint.

Just east of Southend is Foulness Pint.

In Cornwall, the southernmost tip of Britain can be found and it is called Lizard Pint.

In North Devon there is Hartland Pint and Foreland Pint.

The easternmost tip of Lincolnshire is called Ingoldmells Pint.

I think by now I've made my pt.

<<
Not true. It was only after the invention of the metric system that the Paris livre was redefined as exactly 0.5 kg.
>>
Yes, but that was a long time ago. The world wasn't as industrialized, there weren't computers or airplanes, and changing the units would have been much easier than it is today.

Tony,

Have you told CAMRA about St. Catherine's Pint, Foulness Pint, Lizard Pint, Hartland Pint, Foreland Pint and Ingoldmells Pint.