Miles

[Donald]

Why do we still use these?

I understand they are fairly fundamental in firearms/nav/nautical/aeronautical (1 n.mile = 1 arc minute?) fields but those aren't the same miles as land miles.

It all seems a bit arbitrary IMO. Is there any valid reason to use miles over km, considering we seem to work primarily in mm, cm, m etc.? Aside from the obvious expense involved in switching.

Thought this may be a good way to kick off NYE celebrations.

[K30DPC]

English habit? Miles always were used here and probably even if you try to change it most peoples will still stick with them. For e.g. I'm quite often helping my friends with their builders job. Anytime they say any mesurements I'm repeating it converted from inches to cm or mm. They still using inches. I think nothing can change it.

[jjmartin349571]

I think I've said this before, but I can't judge speed or distance in terms of Km/h or km. Miles and mph come naturally to me for this, so they're my preference for motoring.

On the other hand, I did maths, physics and biology for my A levels, and so I always prefer metric for any form of calculations. Imperial is too messy and so I'm happy with metric for these purposes.

So in short I want to have my cake and eat it, and fortunately in the UK I can

[jjmartin349571]

Btw fwiw I built that bench yesterday using metric measurements, as fractions of inches do my head in metric is a lot less clumsy in that sense.

[Vtecmec]

Probably comes down to cost, imagine changing all the road signs throughout the country.

[Donald]

I did say aside from that

[Donald]

English habit? Miles always were used here and probably even if you try to change it most peoples will still stick with them. For e.g. I'm quite often helping my friends with their builders job. Anytime they say any mesurements I'm repeating it converted from inches to cm or mm. They still using inches. I think nothing can change it.

I understand this. When I was scaffolding we worked in feet and inches, except ladders and beams were always referred to in metres

[nick_s]

Because we aren't Europes bitch. The metric system sucks donkey balls. Feet and inches, pounds and ounces, fluid ounces and gallons.......that said, we decimalised our currency, measure our engines in cubic centimetres, buy our fuel in litres (but measure economy in miles per gallon).......yup, we're a bastardised country

[Donald]

We are Europe's bitch

Plus it makes sense. 1000g in a kg, or 28g in an ounce, of which 16 makes 1lb, and 2.2lbs are 1kg.

[jjmartin349571]

To be fair though we don't appear to be at any major detriment for using bits of both, the country is still here and functioning. I can't say in my 23 years I've ever thought 'oh if only we were entirely metric' or vice versa. If it ain't broke...