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Unrelated question to the article: “They were absolutely petrified,” Jain said of his wife and daughter. “If we were on a 70-mile-per-hour highway, and this wou

by avree 3y ago

Unrelated question to the article: “They were absolutely petrified,” Jain said of his wife and daughter. “If we were on a 70-mile-per-hour highway, and this would have happened, that would have been catastrophic.” Is it normal for people in the UK (Jain is from Cambridge, England) to use miles-per-hour? I thought it was kilometers-per-hour, generally.

zimpenfish 3y ago
Pretty much everything road-related in the UK is in miles (distances, speeds, etc.)
- orwin 3y ago
  UK uses a sightly shorter mile than what I (western European SI unit user) uses when on water, and that was quite confusing the first time I tried to convert miles/hour to km/hours. Not a huge difference, but noticeable.
  - asdfaoeu 3y ago
    You're talking about nautical mile. Apart from that a mile is a mile.
  - yardie 3y ago
    You're talking of the nautical mile. It's used globally in the marine industry. The nm is 1.1miles or 1.85km. And it's based on 1 arcminute of the circumference of the Earth.
tolien 3y ago
Yes, UK-spec speedometers show miles per hour as the major unit (km/h are usually there too but given less emphasis) and speed limits are posted in mph.
__s 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_King... > Imperial units are officially used to specify journey distances, vehicle speeds and the sizes of returnable milk containers, beer and cider glasses, fresh milk is often still sold in multiples of pints, with the metric equivalent also marked, and precious metals are sold by the troy ounce
- InCityDreams 3y ago
  A lot just depends on the mood. Cyclists have fun 'doing a century' - either 100km or 100 miles has to be specified, which are vastly different distances. Miles (for me) are just long! Km seem to whizz by (the shorter distance numerically means you knock out more). When I take my eu car to the uk, with no mph on the speedo it's just multiply by 1.5 for ease of brain. Cops are pretty relaxed about it, too when i go slightly over.
flir 3y ago
We're kinda special that way - we went for maximum inconvenience in our measuring systems. We measure speed in mph, buy petrol in litres, and weigh people in stones.
- te_chris 3y ago
  And thanks to the minister for silly measures you can now buy fresh produce in pounds again.
  - flir 3y ago
    Did they actually spend Parliamentary time on that? I assumed it was just headline-bait.
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    Next step - de-decimalising the currency. (If the Tories end up having to ditch Sunak and shoving in yet another weird PM, I _would not be surprised_).
- giuseppe_petri 3y ago
  > buy petrol in litres And use miles per gallon for fuel economy...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
circuit10 3y ago
We often use meters for short distances but miles for long ones
rsynnott 3y ago
For older people, definitely. I think UK speed signs may still be in mph! They certainly kept them long after we switched to kph in Ireland, and I think _that_ was only about 20 years ago. Remember, there are still a lot of people who were _born before metrication started.

by avree 3y ago

zimpenfish 3y ago

Pretty much everything road-related in the UK is in miles (distances, speeds, etc.)

orwin 3y ago
UK uses a sightly shorter mile than what I (western European SI unit user) uses when on water, and that was quite confusing the first time I tried to convert miles/hour to km/hours. Not a huge difference, but noticeable.
- asdfaoeu 3y ago
  You're talking about nautical mile. Apart from that a mile is a mile.
- yardie 3y ago
  You're talking of the nautical mile. It's used globally in the marine industry. The nm is 1.1miles or 1.85km. And it's based on 1 arcminute of the circumference of the Earth.

tolien 3y ago

Yes, UK-spec speedometers show miles per hour as the major unit (km/h are usually there too but given less emphasis) and speed limits are posted in mph.

__s 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_King... > Imperial units are officially used to specify journey distances, vehicle speeds and the sizes of returnable milk containers, beer and cider glasses, fresh milk is often still sold in multiples of pints, with the metric equivalent also marked, and precious metals are sold by the troy ounce

InCityDreams 3y ago
A lot just depends on the mood. Cyclists have fun 'doing a century' - either 100km or 100 miles has to be specified, which are vastly different distances. Miles (for me) are just long! Km seem to whizz by (the shorter distance numerically means you knock out more). When I take my eu car to the uk, with no mph on the speedo it's just multiply by 1.5 for ease of brain. Cops are pretty relaxed about it, too when i go slightly over.

flir 3y ago

We're kinda special that way - we went for maximum inconvenience in our measuring systems. We measure speed in mph, buy petrol in litres, and weigh people in stones.

te_chris 3y ago
And thanks to the minister for silly measures you can now buy fresh produce in pounds again.
- flir 3y ago
  Did they actually spend Parliamentary time on that? I assumed it was just headline-bait.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  Next step - de-decimalising the currency. (If the Tories end up having to ditch Sunak and shoving in yet another weird PM, I _would not be surprised_).
giuseppe_petri 3y ago
> buy petrol in litres And use miles per gallon for fuel economy...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

circuit10 3y ago

We often use meters for short distances but miles for long ones

rsynnott 3y ago

For older people, definitely. I think UK speed signs may still be in mph! They certainly kept them long after we switched to kph in Ireland, and I think _that_ was only about 20 years ago. Remember, there are still a lot of people who were _born before metrication started.