How accurate are distance signs?

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Having a cuppa
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

Post by Having a cuppa »

Ruperts Trooper wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 13:44 It's simply inaccurate to say that UK road signs are in Imperial - speed and longer distances may be but height, width and weight are dual - and so many of the UK general public were taught metric only at school that a majority use metric - most beer is consumed from metric cans at home rather than in pub pints - maybe your time in the UK is so long ago that things have changed here.
But how often do you encounter height, width and weight signs compared to distance and speed limit signs? The majority of road signs are in imperial units. Secondly, I frequent the UK enough to keep up with the changes. Spending an entire 3 or 4 years in just the US would drive any Brit mad. Unfortunately beer cans these days are approximately 2.4 fl oz short of a proper pint. At least some beers such as Stella still come in pints.
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

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Having a cuppa wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 13:52
ChrisH wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 13:35 Your experience is interesting and may be representative - I'm not sure. Certainly my group of friends and family are far more metric-friendly than you - we measure weight, height and area in metric measures, with miles, and miles per hour, being the only imperial measurements we use often.
Hmm, there is only one person I know who lives in the UK who doesn't even measure his height in feet and inches. His parents are immigrants from Eastern European countries, but he has lived in the UK for all his life and he is the only person, besides from you, who doesn't even measure their height in imperial. What is interesting is the first generation of people immigrating to the UK from countries with no historical ties tend to keep thinking in the metric system, or local system of measurements, such as the Hong Kong or Japanese systems. When the first generation gives birth to the second generation in the UK, the second generation is raised adopting both imperial and metric for different purposes despite their parents having limited to no knowledge of imperial. I witnessed that years ago with a girl born to a French father and Polish mother, and present day in the South of London with immigrants from the Middle East and particularly the North of Africa. Your case is very curious indeed.
I was brought up in South Africa and weighed myself in pounds (not stones and pounds). When I was in my early 20's, South Africa converted to the metric systems at the same time as the UK started her connection. I made an effort to get used to using kilograms. When I left South Africa (I detested Apartheid) I decided that as I had got used to kilograms, there was no point in getting used to stones and pounds since the UK was converting anyway. I am still waiting.

It might be worth pointing out one difference between the UK and the SA metrication programs. South Africa banned the sale of any measuring instrument that had imperial units on it, so if you wanted a new bathroom scale you had the choice of cheap one calibrated in kilograms or an expensive one calibrated in kilograms. In the UK, when you replaced your bathroom scales you had no incentive to change your mindset and as a result, if you get weighed for medical purposes, you are unable to cross-check the weight that they record on their computer with what you recorded last time you weighed yourself.

My son, a keep-fit fanatic who has recently passed his exams to become a major in the army always uses kilograms for his person weight - I have noticed this with other keep-fit fanatics. The reason is quite simple - kitbags in the army are weighed in kilograms as are weightlifting weights and the users of both are concerned about what they are lifting as a percentage of their body weight.

My daughter used to use stones and pounds, but after she spent six months in Australia as part of her post-graduate degree, she started using kilograms. She has never reverted to using stones and pounds.

Please do a small exercise - calculate your BMI using pencil and paper (or a simple calculator), but do not rely on an app on your smartphone. The keystrokes for my BMI on a calculator are: "90.6/ 1.82=/1.82=". Now try something similar using stones and pounds alongside feet and inches (or do you like relying on a computer or smartphone).

Finally, I have always been fast at doing mental arithmetic and the simplicity of the metric system makes it a lot easier than being burdened with loads of useless conversions. As an example, several years ago (pre-smartphone days) I was chatting to a friend and the discussion drifted onto the size of sphere that held 2000 tons of water. We wondered how big the sphere was. My mind went: one ton is about one tonne, therefore the sphere occupies 2000 cubic metres, which in is equal to 2 cubic decametres. The volume is 4*pi*r^3/3, so setting pi equal 3 (I was dong this mentally), we end up with r^3 = 1/2 from which r is equal to somewhere between 0.7 and 0.8 decametres or somewhere between 7 or 9 metres. My friend on the other hand started with 2000 tons which he multiplied by 2240 to get pounds. He had to divide that by 62.5 to get cubic feet.
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

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Vierwielen wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 14:52
I was brought up in South Africa and weighed myself in pounds (not stones and pounds). When I was in my early 20's, South Africa converted to the metric systems at the same time as the UK started her connection. I made an effort to get used to using kilograms. When I left South Africa (I detested Apartheid) I decided that as I had got used to kilograms, there was no point in getting used to stones and pounds since the UK was converting anyway. I am still waiting.

It might be worth pointing out one difference between the UK and the SA metrication programs. South Africa banned the sale of any measuring instrument that had imperial units on it, so if you wanted a new bathroom scale you had the choice of cheap one calibrated in kilograms or an expensive one calibrated in kilograms. In the UK, when you replaced your bathroom scales you had no incentive to change your mindset and as a result, if you get weighed for medical purposes, you are unable to cross-check the weight that they record on their computer with what you recorded last time you weighed yourself.

My son, a keep-fit fanatic who has recently passed his exams to become a major in the army always uses kilograms for his person weight - I have noticed this with other keep-fit fanatics. The reason is quite simple - kitbags in the army are weighed in kilograms as are weightlifting weights and the users of both are concerned about what they are lifting as a percentage of their body weight.

My daughter used to use stones and pounds, but after she spent six months in Australia as part of her post-graduate degree, she started using kilograms. She has never reverted to using stones and pounds.

Please do a small exercise - calculate your BMI using pencil and paper (or a simple calculator), but do not rely on an app on your smartphone. The keystrokes for my BMI on a calculator are: "90.6/ 1.82=/1.82=". Now try something similar using stones and pounds alongside feet and inches (or do you like relying on a computer or smartphone).

Finally, I have always been fast at doing mental arithmetic and the simplicity of the metric system makes it a lot easier than being burdened with loads of useless conversions. As an example, several years ago (pre-smartphone days) I was chatting to a friend and the discussion drifted onto the size of sphere that held 2000 tons of water. We wondered how big the sphere was. My mind went: one ton is about one tonne, therefore the sphere occupies 2000 cubic metres, which in is equal to 2 cubic decametres. The volume is 4*pi*r^3/3, so setting pi equal 3 (I was dong this mentally), we end up with r^3 = 1/2 from which r is equal to somewhere between 0.7 and 0.8 decametres or somewhere between 7 or 9 metres. My friend on the other hand started with 2000 tons which he multiplied by 2240 to get pounds. He had to divide that by 62.5 to get cubic feet.
Congratulations to your son passing his exams! I wish him the best in the army. Did people in South Africa typically weigh themselves in just pounds, or stones and pounds before metrication? Also BMI is designed to be used with metric units, but normally I would just use the online NHS calculator.
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

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Having a cuppa wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 15:30 Did people in South Africa typically weigh themselves in just pounds, or stones and pounds before metrication? Also BMI is designed to be used with metric units, but normally I would just use the online NHS calculator.
Just in pounds, as in the US.

Although South Africa used the imperial system of units before metrication, there were a few differences: stones were not in common use, nor were quarters. In addition there were two different tons - the long ton (2240 lbs) and the short or Cape ton (2000 lbs). In three of the four provinces, the morgen (2.11 acres) which had its origins in the Netherlands was used rather than the acre. The morgen consisted of 600 Cape roods and one Cape rood was 144 square Cape feet. One Cape foot was 1.033 English feet.

I heard a story of a land surveyor in South Africa who was stopped for speeding. The speed trap consisted of two rubber pipes across the road (of the type still often used for counting traffic). He challenged the policeman concerned about the setup of the speed trap and showed the policeman the official stamp on his tape measure. He then measured the distance between the two tubes and found that they appeared to be closer than the specified amount. He did not tell the policeman that his tape measure was in Cape feet and inches, not English feet and inches. One very puzzled policeman thereupon cancelled the ticket. (BTW, the South African police were not noted for their interlect).
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

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Vierwielen wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 21:46 Although South Africa used the imperial system of units before meication, there were a few differences: stones were not in common use, nor were quarters.
Assuming you mean quarters as units of weight or volume, rather than just the abstract fraction one-fourth, I don't think quarters were used in practice in the UK in many branches of life. I was at primary school in England in the 50s and secondary school in the 60s. Quarters were a bit like rods, poles, and perches - listed on the back of school exercise books but not encountered in ordinary life.
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

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Vierwielen wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 21:46
Having a cuppa wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 15:30 Did people in South Africa typically weigh themselves in just pounds, or stones and pounds before metrication? Also BMI is designed to be used with metric units, but normally I would just use the online NHS calculator.
Just in pounds, as in the US.

Although South Africa used the imperial system of units before metrication, there were a few differences: stones were not in common use, nor were quarters. In addition there were two different tons - the long ton (2240 lbs) and the short or Cape ton (2000 lbs). In three of the four provinces, the morgen (2.11 acres) which had its origins in the Netherlands was used rather than the acre. The morgen consisted of 600 Cape roods and one Cape rood was 144 square Cape feet. One Cape foot was 1.033 English feet.

I heard a story of a land surveyor in South Africa who was stopped for speeding. The speed trap consisted of two rubber pipes across the road (of the type still often used for counting traffic). He challenged the policeman concerned about the setup of the speed trap and showed the policeman the official stamp on his tape measure. He then measured the distance between the two tubes and found that they appeared to be closer than the specified amount. He did not tell the policeman that his tape measure was in Cape feet and inches, not English feet and inches. One very puzzled policeman thereupon cancelled the ticket. (BTW, the South African police were not noted for their interlect).
So before metrication, South Africa used a mixture of imperial and Dutch units? Would Dutch descendants measure their height in cape feet, while English descendants would use English feet? Since land surveying was in cape feet, how did this affect the SA national grid system and architectural papers?
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

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wrinkly wrote: Fri Feb 05, 2021 01:24
Vierwielen wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 21:46 Although South Africa used the imperial system of units before meication, there were a few differences: stones were not in common use, nor were quarters.
Assuming you mean quarters as units of weight or volume, rather than just the abstract fraction one-fourth, I don't think quarters were used in practice in the UK in many branches of life. I was at primary school in England in the 50s and secondary school in the 60s. Quarters were a bit like rods, poles, and perches - listed on the back of school exercise books but not encountered in ordinary life.
Quarters were most often used as a loose measure for things like sweets, IIRC. These days the equivalent would be 100g or possibly 125g.
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

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Chris Bertram wrote: Fri Feb 05, 2021 07:35
wrinkly wrote: Fri Feb 05, 2021 01:24
Vierwielen wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 21:46 Although South Africa used the imperial system of units before meication, there were a few differences: stones were not in common use, nor were quarters.
Assuming you mean quarters as units of weight or volume, rather than just the abstract fraction one-fourth, I don't think quarters were used in practice in the UK in many branches of life. I was at primary school in England in the 50s and secondary school in the 60s. Quarters were a bit like rods, poles, and perches - listed on the back of school exercise books but not encountered in ordinary life.
Quarters were most often used as a loose measure for things like sweets, IIRC. These days the equivalent would be 100g or possibly 125g.
I meant to refer to the unit of weight defined as 2 stone or a 1/4 of a hundredweight, and the unit of volume defined as 8 bushels:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_%28unit%29

I assumed Viervielen was referring to one or both of these. I can remember buying sweets, cherries etc by the quarter of a pound, and that people would leave out the "of a pound" in talking about it.

There are a lot of quarters around. No doubt "quart" arose as an abbreviation for "quarter of a gallon".
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

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The most famous quarter would surely be the quarterpounder from your burger joint of choice.
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

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Having a cuppa wrote: Fri Feb 05, 2021 05:52
Vierwielen wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 21:46
Having a cuppa wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 15:30 Did people in South Africa typically weigh themselves in just pounds, or stones and pounds before metrication? Also BMI is designed to be used with metric units, but normally I would just use the online NHS calculator.
Just in pounds, as in the US.

Although South Africa used the imperial system of units before metrication, there were a few differences: stones were not in common use, nor were quarters. In addition there were two different tons - the long ton (2240 lbs) and the short or Cape ton (2000 lbs). In three of the four provinces, the morgen (2.11 acres) which had its origins in the Netherlands was used rather than the acre. The morgen consisted of 600 Cape roods and one Cape rood was 144 square Cape feet. One Cape foot was 1.033 English feet.

I heard a story of a land surveyor in South Africa who was stopped for speeding. The speed trap consisted of two rubber pipes across the road (of the type still often used for counting traffic). He challenged the policeman concerned about the setup of the speed trap and showed the policeman the official stamp on his tape measure. He then measured the distance between the two tubes and found that they appeared to be closer than the specified amount. He did not tell the policeman that his tape measure was in Cape feet and inches, not English feet and inches. One very puzzled policeman thereupon cancelled the ticket. (BTW, the South African police were not noted for their interlect).
So before metrication, South Africa used a mixture of imperial and Dutch units? Would Dutch descendants measure their height in cape feet, while English descendants would use English feet? Since land surveying was in cape feet, how did this affect the SA national grid system and architectural papers?
Prior to metrication, Cape feet were only used to measure land, the reason being that once Britain was standardising the units of measure in the Cape, they realised that replacing Cape feet with English feet in respect of land measure would play havoc with land deeds, so the Cape units of measure remained as the official unit of measure for land. When the voortrekkers (predecessors of the Boers) moved into the interior and set up the two Boer republics, they took the Cape units of measure with them. The Colony of Natal was however predominantly English (plus of course Zulu), so English units of measure were used there.

Once gold was discovered in the Transvaal, there was a gold rush and in 1886 the township of Johannesburg was laid out in a grid pattern. The actual work of laying things out was contracted out to two different firms - one who laid out the grid to the north of Bree Street and one who laid out the grid to the south of Bree Street. Unfortunately the firm who handled the southern part did not realise that they should be using Cape Feet, so the north-south roads have a kink in them which gets bigger ad you travel eastwards. (Both firms used the same starting point at the western end of Bree Street) The resultant kink can be seen here (highlighted).
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

Post by Having a cuppa »

Big L wrote: Fri Feb 05, 2021 09:44 The most famous quarter would surely be the quarterpounder from your burger joint of choice.
Or if you're in Continental Europe, the "McRoyale"! :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=uYSt8K8VP6k
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

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wrinkly wrote: Fri Feb 05, 2021 01:24
Vierwielen wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 21:46 Although South Africa used the imperial system of units before meication, there were a few differences: stones were not in common use, nor were quarters.
Assuming you mean quarters as units of weight or volume, rather than just the abstract fraction one-fourth, I don't think quarters were used in practice in the UK in many branches of life. I was at primary school in England in the 50s and secondary school in the 60s. Quarters were a bit like rods, poles, and perches - listed on the back of school exercise books but not encountered in ordinary life.
Actually both, though in this context I was thinking of quarter hundredweights (28 lbs).
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

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Having a cuppa wrote: Fri Feb 05, 2021 12:40
Big L wrote: Fri Feb 05, 2021 09:44 The most famous quarter would surely be the quarterpounder from your burger joint of choice.
Or if you're in Continental Europe, the "McRoyale"! :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=uYSt8K8VP6k
... If they were called "quarterpounders" they would probably break local trades descriptions on at least two counts - firstly the EU has placed many restrictions on the use of the word "pound" and secondly, what pound would they be talking about - the French livre, the Dutch pond and the German Pfund all having been legally defined at 500 grams at some time in the past, rather than 454 grams which is the definition of the imperial pound.
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

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Truvelo wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 20:55 Regarding the countdown marker signs approaching GSJ's the distance between the 100yd marker and the start of the slip road is definitely not 100yds. It's more like 200. At virtually every junction the distance between the 100yd sign and the slip road is twice that of the 300 to 200 and 200 to 100 signs :@
Got any examples?

Remember the start of the slip road is taken as being the start of the Diagram 1010 line, as here (and indicated by the CHART studs in the middle of the nearside lane):

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.41868 ... 6656?hl=en
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

Post by swissferry »

So the signage here is wrong as the countdown markers are on a lane drop and indicate the distance to the nose and taper (diagram 1042). Had previously thought this a little dangerous.
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

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swissferry wrote: Fri Feb 26, 2021 22:26 So the signage here is wrong as the countdown markers are on a lane drop and indicate the distance to the nose and taper (diagram 1042). Had previously thought this a little dangerous.
I suspect that motorway rules are different.
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

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Vierwielen wrote: Wed Feb 03, 2021 21:39
Having a cuppa wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 22:37 draught beer is sold by the pint
Draught beer might be sold by the pint, but it is usually delivered in 50 litre kegs.
This is usually the kind of discussion I would avoid, but I have to say, this struck a chord with me. I find that I generally feel both the entirely metric and entirely imperial systems are quite alien, which is purely a product of the fact I've been surrounded by this mix-and-match approach for all my life and practiced it for most of my working life.

When I managed a bar, I used to order '11s' from our supplier, which was an 11 gallon keg, but it would always be labelled and invoiced in metric at 50 litres (I think they used to call it a 'Eurokeg'). I then started getting smaller kegs for certain lines, and our supplier confusingly called those '30s', which were 30 litres and never referred to in imperial (at least by our supplier). Of course, even the law regarding retail sale is a mix, with both units of pints and millilitres.

Similarly, in my previous job, we would use a mix of measurements but usually only for standardised items, with staging sections and certain lengths of scaffolding bars generally being in imperial, and everything else being in metres. So, you could legitimately have a three 250mm boom arms mounted to an 8ft bar, in a 450mm base, sat on a piece of 4ft x 4ft staging with 500mm legs. Though there's plenty of standard non-sensical measurements where items have been changed and accepted, like the 12.5kg weight.

I do have to say, I have a better comprehension of a mile over a kilometre, which is likely thanks to road distances and speeds being signed in mile. On the other hand, I'd say I have a much better comprehension of metres over feet and inches, which is likely because the engineering elements of my career have always dealt with metric and generally distances that were no where near kilometres or miles.
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

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swissferry wrote: Fri Feb 26, 2021 22:26 So the signage here is wrong as the countdown markers are on a lane drop and indicate the distance to the nose and taper (diagram 1042). Had previously thought this a little dangerous.
Countdown markers are not to be used at a lane drop. Occasionally they are, invariably down to clueless designers. This is particularly the case if the junction was previously a diverge, there then being a reluctance to remove signing which is actually now not appropriate.

For example here:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.67374 ... 8192?hl=en

Many, many years ago, (early 90s) when we first took over West Yorkshire, I noticed these countdowns on the approach to the lane drop and had them removed. Someone who thought he knew better than me had them replaced. When I noticed it a couple of years later I tried to get them removed, sadly to no avail. Sometimes you're just beating your head against a wall and you can't educate the braindead. So I gave up, screw it. HE really should police their contractors far more than they do.

IAN 144 used to mention it, but as it's been withdrawn, the clueless have no guidance, (not that most of them even knew the IAN existed, much less bothered to read it):

2.13 Countdown marker signs (diagram 823, 824 & 825) shall be provided on the approach to taper diverge junctions, but shall not be provided at ‘Lane Drop’ junctions.
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

Post by SteelCamel »

So what about these countdown signs? They count down to... the village sign, and a "SLOW" marking. Note that the speed limit is still NSL, so it's not like other points along the A9 where there's a countdown to the speed limit change. Here the countdown is to a purely advisory "SLOW" and "please drive carefully". Which is rather confusing, as there's no indication of what it's counting down to until you get to zero.
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Re: How accurate are distance signs?

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SteelCamel wrote: Sat Feb 27, 2021 15:28 So what about these countdown signs? They count down to... the village sign, and a "SLOW" marking. Note that the speed limit is still NSL, so it's not like other points along the A9 where there's a countdown to the speed limit change. Here the countdown is to a purely advisory "SLOW" and "please drive carefully". Which is rather confusing, as there's no indication of what it's counting down to until you get to zero.
No, they are wrong 'uns. The description from TSRGD for this type of sign is, " Distance in hundreds of yards to a roundabout or the next point at which traffic may leave a route", which is not the case here.

Driving the road in Streetview, looks like a half-baked attempt at traffic calming.
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