I tried to get answers from the Secretary of State for Transport via my MP about the issues I raised in two of my recent Metric Views articles. My MP told me that he is not going to put my question to the Secretary of State as there are no plans to replace the units on British road signs. Is this a convenient way to shield his ministerial colleagues from awkward questions about imperial road signs?
Continue reading “Government avoids awkward questions on imperial road signs”Tag: documents
Government once admitted that road signs cannot remain imperial in a metric world
Official government documents from the early 1970’s stated that road signs cannot remain imperial while the rest of the UK goes metric. One of these documents is an official letter from the Ministry of Transport (MOT), as the Department for Transport (DfT) was then called. Would you believe it? Compare that with the current attitude of the DfT today, which directly contradicts the admission in the MOT letter.
Continue reading “Government once admitted that road signs cannot remain imperial in a metric world”Government cost estimates to convert all UK speed limit signs to km/h in 1970 were far below £30 million in today’s money
The British Government once developed and examined proposals to change all UK speed limit signs from miles per hour to kilometres per hour in the 1960’s and in 1970. On 9 December 1970, the Minister for Transport Industries John Peyton announced that the proposed metrication of speed limit signs would not go ahead and was postponed indefinitely. The proposed change to metric speed limits was due to be implemented in 1973. Fifty years have now passed since then. Half a century later, UK speed limit signs are still in imperial units. The Department for Transport (DfT) now claims that metricating UK road signs costs too much. However, it would have cost little to convert all UK road signs to metric units according to cost estimates by the Department of the Environment (DoE), which had responsibility for transport at the time, according to historical government documents held at the National Archives.
Continue reading “Government cost estimates to convert all UK speed limit signs to km/h in 1970 were far below £30 million in today’s money”Costs of supporting dual measures
Ronnie Cohen provides us with an example from his work of the additional costs that businesses face as a result of having to provide for dual measures. Imagine how much better off we might be if all such costs in the UK economy and throughout the world could be avoided.
Metric Views 