The absurdity of the use of kph

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  First and foremost I apologise (yet again) for such a long gap in between blog posts. The return of freedom over the past year has kept me away from screens. They say it takes 66 days to develop a new habit. Running is a habit I developed over lockdown, but the return to the office (and I intend to never work from home again) and frequenting the pub has reduced frequency of this.  It is, however, not completely bleak for my physical well-being. Cramming a number of social events in after work has led to me doing a lot more walking around central London. I don’t have an Apple Watch, (other brands of smart watch exist), but my iPhone records my steps and a lot of really interesting data on my walking and running. As would be no surprise, I’ve configured everything in metric units. Thankfully, gone are the days where Apple would dictate to you , based on your location, the units of measurement you use. You have a chose whether to specify distances in miles or kilometres....
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Metric Signs in Islington

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A few years back, I recall there being an uproar spurred on by the BMWA over Islington Council's decision to use exclusively metric units on some road signs. These included height and width restriction signs, as well as speed bump warnings. 

The vandals removed and defaced many of the signs and mounted pressure on Islington council to replace them with imperial-only signs.  This has left the borough with a series of width restriction signs that are labelled as  6'6" , when in fact they mean 2.0 metres. (In most other places these are dual-unit signs) Considering that vehicle dimensions are specified in millimetres in manuals, anyone without a calculator is at risk of doing damage to their vehicle. 

I managed to find one sign (see below) that escaped the ravages of the BMWA. However, this sign is not without its flaws. 
The sign states Humps for 600 mtrs. 

According to the BIPM, there should never be any abbreviation for the metre – or any metric unit for that matter. Only the whole word or the SI symbol (m) should be used. 

Therefore, the sign should read: Humps for 600 m

Nonetheless, it's always a pleasure to see metric signs on our roads and this is evidence that they pose no danger to road users, who generally speak in metres anyway. 

 

Comments

Multiparty Democracy Today said…
There is actually an important reason to not use m here. Because Brits are used to m meaning miles, unless were get rid of mile signs, or switch them to mi, then we could easily mistake 600 m to mean 600 miles than 600 metres and on some roads, like country roads, this is not unfeasible.
Wednesday, 14 October, 2015
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