When will the Govt. stop being ambivalent about the use of imperial and metric?

"Back in history" we were told that we were to convert to metric. Weights %26amp; Measures required shopkeepers to change to metric , and schools started teaching metric. But even today we have a regulation requiring special car seats for a child under 4ft.5ins. Recently I bought a sheet of hardboard 3mm thick and measuring 8ft. x 4ft. Our roads are signed in miles, and we buy fuel in litres. I guess you could go on. When, please, are we going one way or the other, and stop confusing everyone, especially children?

When will the Govt. stop being ambivalent about the use of imperial and metric?
I agree. The metric system was designed for simpletons that couldn't remember different units that each used.


Anyone espousing the metric system is a pantywaste.
Reply:They won't. It isn't a vote winner and George Bush hasn't asked Tony to do it.
Reply:It would be better for all concerned to give up the outmoded imperial measurements.


I still haven't heard one real argument against the metric system, except tradition. Somebody actually told me once that metric was too complicated!





Actually there is a hotel on the Inishowen peninsula in Ireland that changed its name from "Imperial" to "Metric" when Ireland changed over.
Reply:I agree with you 100%. I think we should go metric all the way, once you've got the hang of metric its so much easier. We still have tape measures with both imperial and metric on, I think that's so that if someone is given a metric measurement they can check to see what size it REALLY is.
Reply:I think this question could just as easily be asked in USA. Don't kid yourself, the children are the only ones who ARE NOT confused!
Reply:You should have said from the beginning that you live in Britain. Others may be confused. Starting in the 1960s metrication was taught in the American primary schools. It was dropped -- without discussion -- in the 1980s, notwithstanding Canada went ahead and abandoned the Imperial system. Even on its highways.





The answer to your question is that the UK Government has moved only insofar as the European Union has forced it to. And the EU is concerned only with trade -- with making it easy for Finns and Czechs (say) to sell in Britain, and vice versa.





Nobody in Finland is selling you highways. They might sell you cars, but inasmuch as the steering wheel is on the wrong side anyway, they can just as well switch speedometers and odometers.





Car specs haven't be standardised within the EU. Yet. Probably never.
Reply:i,m a chef and i still work in pounds and ounces..i refuse to change i see no reason to.. i go into shops and ask for a pound of whatever and i get it.
Reply:why can't we teach both
Reply:All things sold should be metric. Sometimes you will see the imperial dimensions but the metric must be there and that's what they retail by.


Miles on the roads are gonna change but it's going to cost the government and not the retailer of the consumer so they'll put it off for a bit.


Metric is so much simpler, why anyone would waste time (particularly with messurements smaller than an inch) struggling with several different number bases I can't imagine. we count in tens but we measure inches in 12's, feets in 3's ounces in 16's, pounds in 14's - seeems silly.
Reply:I say leave things as they are. Everything is dumbed down enough already. We know two different systems so there's no reason children can't learn! I want to keep using miles and feet and inches makes much more sense that centimetres to me. I'm 23, I'm not an older person and this way suits me fine! Let me guess, you're happy about being part of Europe too and would be happier with the Euro? I for one wouldn't! Leave things as they are and stop complaining!