Here in Australia, we still talk about 44 gallon drums, which are equivalent to the 55 gallon drums of the USA variety. Both Miles per Gallon and Litres per 100

Here in Australia, we still talk about 44 gallon drums, which are equivalent to the 55 gallon drums of the USA variety. Both Miles per Gallon and Litres per 100 Kilometres are still used in various ways. The gallon is approximated by 4.5 litres and the mile is approximated by 1600 metres as simple conversion factors. Often we use both centimetres and feet/inches for peoples height. Over the years, there have been various discussion amongst friends as to why Americans have this penchant for speaking in feet, pounds and gallons? Sometimes, it has been concluded that Americans like big numbers, so the use pounds instead of tons (or tonnes), etc. We have discussed, at times, why Americans used a smaller grouping system that increased by factors of 1,000 instead of 1,000,000 when using billions, trillions, etc. So you get the discrepancy at times of trying to determine whether someone who is using billion is talking about 1 million million or 1 thousand million. Much as metric can be difficult to get used to with its basic sizes, it is at least consistent in being based on the count of 10 and having a common set of prefixes for size changes.