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The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

mylondon.news

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Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#61

Post by Someone »

zdragnar wrote: post #49
gpm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe their point is that a mile is defined to be exactly 1609.344 meters, a gallon is defined to be exactly 3.785411784 litres, a pound (mass) is defined to be exactly 453.59237 grams and so on. These are all just weird multiples of metric units at this point.

Eh, I seriously doubt that we will be changing the distance a mile represents if, for some bizarre reason, a meter gets redefined. Likewise, pounds and gallons and so forth. These measurements "defined in metric" is really more of a "formal conversion rate" ala converting between degrees F and C.

> if, for some bizarre reason, a meter gets redefined

Miles, feet and yards were tied to the meter in 1893 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendenhall_Order).

The meter got redefined 3 times since then (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metre#Summary_o...)

Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#62

Post by rascul »

deadbabe wrote: post #32
1970-01-01 wrote: post #9

London will switch sides when America goes metric - i.e. never.

The imperial system America uses is better optimized for quantities people expect to use in real life frequently without requiring awkward decimals or larger numbers etc. better ergonomics. metric is only for science.

I feel like neither system is inherently better outside of familiarity and I don't care which is used I'm just tired of having to own two sets of tools.

Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#63

Post by GJim »

NordStreamYacht wrote: post #34
ifwinterco wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be way more annoying for LHT countries to change to RHT than to switch from US units to metric, have to change literally every road sign, street light, road markings etc in the entire country. Plus everyone would then be driving cars with the steering wheel on the wrong side for decades until the whole fleet got eventually replaced. Countries have done it before, but I think there's a reason not many countri…

> There's no way to gradually switch from LHT to RHT, you have to somehow do a switchover in a day You could do it in phases. Have the trucks switch over on Monday, buses on Tuesday ...

And we would want to do that because......

Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#64

Post by pandaman »

legulere wrote: post #41
timbit42 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once all manufacturing is controlled by China, they could refuse to make cars with steering on the right or use Standard measurements, increasing pressure and eventually forcing the UK and US to switch.

There are enough standards that don’t have non-metric alternatives like the square drive of socket wrenches or a lot of bicycle standards. It’s very unlikely that they will get replaced

Bicycles are hilarious because the same sizes will be designated in inches or millimeters depending on where or why they are taken. E.g. handlebars are 31.8 mm or 25.4 mm (1¼" and 1") but steerers are 1" or 1⅛". Wheels of the same diameter will be called 28", 29" or 700 (and the diameter is actually 25½" but it's only called "622 mm"). And even when they use metric from the start for something that is not a standard fastener already they end up with things like 28.99 mm spindles (not to be confused with 30 mm spindles, which also exist).

Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#65

Post by evanb »

garciansmith wrote: post #25

There are some spots in the US where you drive on the left, albeit for a short distance and the road is divided. Still messes with my brain. E.g., here in the northern suburbs of Detroit (W. Big Beaver going under I-75): https://www.google.com/maps/@42.5620634,-83.1581674,18z

Also the whole of the Virgin Islands!

Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#66

Post by satiric »

legulere wrote: post #47
deadbabe wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The imperial system America uses is better optimized for quantities people expect to use in real life frequently without requiring awkward decimals or larger numbers etc. better ergonomics. metric is only for science.

With imperial you have weird fractions instead of decimals. To know that 3/4“ is larger than 1/2“ I have to actively think, decimals come pretty naturally (which was probably different in times before people went to school and learned to do math on paper)

To know that 0.32 m is smaller than 43 cm I have to actively think, but I'm guessing you don't. I've never had to think about 3/4 vs 1/2. Even 5/16ths vs 1/4 is intuitive for me.

Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#67

Post by vrighter »

jemmyw wrote: post #11

> There's only one spot in London where you'll have to drive like much of the rest of the world That makes it sound like Britain is the only place with left side traffic. 35% of the world population live in countries where they drive on the left side.

In my country, Malta, we drive on the left too, but I drive a LHD car, so everyone can tell me I'm on the wrong side somehow.

Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#68

Post by einherjae »

GJim wrote: post #63
NordStreamYacht wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no way to gradually switch from LHT to RHT, you have to somehow do a switchover in a day You could do it in phases. Have the trucks switch over on Monday, buses on Tuesday ...

And we would want to do that because......

We can take jokes…

Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#70

Post by ozyschmozy »

satiric wrote: post #66
legulere wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With imperial you have weird fractions instead of decimals. To know that 3/4“ is larger than 1/2“ I have to actively think, decimals come pretty naturally (which was probably different in times before people went to school and learned to do math on paper)

To know that 0.32 m is smaller than 43 cm I have to actively think, but I'm guessing you don't. I've never had to think about 3/4 vs 1/2. Even 5/16ths vs 1/4 is intuitive for me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-pound_burger
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