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Level crossing stupidity...


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13 hours ago, eastglosmog said:

Just googled the changeover and it was quite a bit longer ago than I remembered - way back in 2005 (time flies) ............

SOMEWHERE I have a nice photo I took at a crossroad a few miles south of Westport where the north-south distances were in km and the east-west distances in miles ( or vice-versa p'raps ) ........ must get it scanned !

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30 minutes ago, Wickham Green said:

It's quite surprising where you'll find multilingual  'DRIVE ON THE LEFT' signs in Ireland - even the opposite side of the country from any ferry port !

 

Much needed in the UK too -- see: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-47851582

 

Martin.

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1 hour ago, Wickham Green said:

It's quite surprising where you'll find multilingual  'DRIVE ON THE LEFT' signs in Ireland - even the opposite side of the country from any ferry port !

 

35 minutes ago, martin_wynne said:

 

Much needed in the UK too -- see: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-47851582

 

Martin.

There is little heavy traffic in both regions, it must be easy to forget that you should drive on the 'other' side of the road.

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41 minutes ago, martin_wynne said:

 

Much needed in the UK too -- see: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-47851582

 

Martin.

Oddly I didn't experience that problem the last time I drove in the Highlands.  But I was driving a Hummer H2 which was rather large and presented a foreboding aspect to anyone coming in the opposite direction. (Not by choice I might add  -because the hire company didn't have the vehicle I'd booked I got the Hummer instead,)

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5 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

 

There is little heavy traffic in both regions, it must be easy to forget that you should drive on the 'other' side of the road.

If you have another side of road to drive on , That's an unusually wide road for the highlands and Islands..

Edited by TheQ
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As a Brit living in Denmark, I have tried all four combinations of LHD/RHD and driving on Left and right sides of roads. It really isn't that hard, at least not on roads them selves. It tends to be public but not road areas, like carparks and petrol stations where there  are often assumed rights of way that are deeply ingrained into the habits of the local drivers that are not indicated by road markings. Another slight tricky area is when getting to the end of a one way street, where one might be correctly driving on the 'wrong' side of the road, when turing out of such a street I really do have to think about which side of the road I should turn on to. Mind you I have  seen Brits driving in Denmark getting confused by the wide cycle lanes and thinking that they are on a dual carriageway!

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For a while I was living in France but returning to the UK quite often. I found driving on the right a little awkward at first but the thing that always threw me - either way, every time I travelled - was the first time I came to a roundabout, I had to think very carefully about which way round I was supposed to go. Fortunately I didn't get it wrong. There was one time where I briefly found myself on the wrong side of a road though.

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27 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

But I was driving a Hummer H2 which was rather large and presented a foreboding aspect to anyone coming in the opposite direction. (Not by choice I might add  -because the hire company didn't have the vehicle I'd booked I got the Hummer instead,)

 

What on earth did you book to end up with one of those monstrosities, Mike? I was annoyed enough a couple of years ago when they changed the Fabia i ordered to a Yeti but if it's been a Hummer I'd have refused it. I've got a BMW 1 series ordered next month in Germany so it will be interesting what i get, I'm betting on a Golf!

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43 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

 

There is little heavy traffic in both regions, it must be easy to forget that you should drive on the 'other' side of the road.

Exactly. Which is why some of the worst accidents have been in quite remote areas, like Donegal, Mayo, Sligo (& others along the West coast).

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On 15/04/2019 at 18:16, jim.snowdon said:

This country uses metric units. That the speed limits on railways and roads are still in imperial units is by exception, either due to the impracticalities of changing over, or the public hankering after now obsolete measures.

 

Jim

It is practical.  In Ireland all speed limits changed literally overnight from mph to km/hr 20th January 2005.

 

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11 hours ago, Wickham Green said:

It's quite surprising where you'll find multilingual  'DRIVE ON THE LEFT' signs in Ireland - even the opposite side of the country from any ferry port !

We need them in the UK to remind 4x4 drivers to stay on their side of the road:)

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9 hours ago, Hobby said:

 

What on earth did you book to end up with one of those monstrosities, Mike? I was annoyed enough a couple of years ago when they changed the Fabia i ordered to a Yeti but if it's been a Hummer I'd have refused it. I've got a BMW 1 series ordered next month in Germany so it will be interesting what i get, I'm betting on a Golf!

I booked a Discovery.  Partly because I didn't know what sort of roads we might encounter (and what sort of off-roads we might get involved with) and partly because I wanted something large as we were going to be accompanied by two friends from the USA who would be part way through their UK/European tour which meant I expected some rather large items of luggage.  What we got with them were actually more like a couple of cabin trunks, but on wheels, rather than suitcases.  The Hummer was an interesting drive - not as bad as I'd expected (which might not be saying much of course) and fortunately our two friends from the US offered to pay half the fuel bill (and all of the hotel bill) which made a big difference.  BTW it was not a patch on a another friend's Series I Discovery off road.

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3 hours ago, Colin_McLeod said:

It is practical.  In Ireland all speed limits changed literally overnight from mph to km/hr 20th January 2005.

 

NR retain miles and chains simply to avoid having to update a mountain of historic civil engineering records, but we still think of milk and beer in pints because the public, apparently, protest at the thought of beer in litres, at least as far as getting it over the pub counter is concerned. I'm all for finishing the job off and converting everything to metric units once and for all. Even then, it wouldn't make such legacy items as 95 lb/yard bullhead rail disappear.

 

Jim

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36 minutes ago, jim.snowdon said:

I'm all for finishing the job off and converting everything to metric units once and for all.

 

Hi Jim,

 

Why? Most folks can cope with more than one set of units. Everyone knows what a 6ft fence post looks like, why try to specify it in mm?

 

It feels good to retain a link with the past and use the traditional units. Some of them are very sensible, derived from centuries of practical use. For example UK shoe sizes are still based on a 1 barleycorn difference between each full size. A barleycorn is 1/3rd of an inch.

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

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1 hour ago, martin_wynne said:

 

Hi Jim,

 

Why? Most folks can cope with more than one set of units. Everyone knows what a 6ft fence post looks like, why try to specify it in mm?

 

It feels good to retain a link with the past and use the traditional units. Some of them are very sensible, derived from centuries of practical use. For example UK shoe sizes are still based on a 1 barleycorn difference between each full size. A barleycorn is 1/3rd of an inch.

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

But the same thing applies to the metric system. Most of it relates to an item, that everyone's familiar with. Namely water!

OK technically the 'real' standards are rather obscure scientific terms these days.

 

But for example, the metric zero degrees C is the freezing point of water and 100 degrees C is the boiling point.  There is nothing obscure about them and almost everyone has come across those in practice.

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I was at  meeting about SI units yesterday, the only physically compared measurement left is the 1KG lump of metal held in France. All the others are measured Items. A lot of yesterdays meeting was on the efforts to make a repeatable measured replacement for the KG.

 

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Sorry but I think and work in imperial, the trouble with metric is you soon end up with crazy unwieldy numbers, its a bit like a quid equals 85597.4 lira or something, a daft example but you see what I mean.

As for us changing to driving on the 'wrong' side of the road...how many people do you want to kill and injure..?  You might have just about got away with that up until the early 70s perhaps.

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10 hours ago, melmerby said:

Are you hoping?

 

Yes, though a small Skoda will do as long as it's not a Yeti!

 

13 minutes ago, Porkscratching said:

Sorry but I think and work in imperial, the trouble with metric is you soon end up with crazy unwieldy numbers, its a bit like a quid equals 85597.4 lira or something, a daft example but you see what I mean.

As for us changing to driving on the 'wrong' side of the road...how many people do you want to kill and injure..?  You might have just about got away with that up until the early 70s perhaps.

 

That's why metric has centimetres, metres and kilometres so you don't do everything in millimetres! To be fair metric is a lot more logical than impreial as well.

 

I seem to have started something with that off the cuff suggestion to change sides for driving... Please note it was said very "tongue in cheek" as a joke, there is no way we'll see anything of the kind in the UK until we all travel around in self -driving vehicles and the human side is removed altogether, it would cost far too many lives if we tried it now!

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7 hours ago, martin_wynne said:

 

... A barleycorn is 1/3rd of an inch.

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

 

Not many people know that, or even that the barlycorn is a unit of measurement.  On a repeat of Pointless broadcast earlier this week, the barleycorn scored slightly higher (6 points) than the Russian Versta!

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2 minutes ago, Hobby said:

 

Yes, though a small Skoda will do as long as it's not a Yeti!

 

 

That's why metric has centimetres, metres and kilometres so you don't do everything in millimetres! To be fair metric is a lot more logical than impreial as well.

 

I seem to have started something with that off the cuff suggestion to change sides for driving... Please note it was said very "tongue in cheek" as a joke, there is no way we'll see anything of the kind in the UK until we all travel around in self -driving vehicles and the human side is removed altogether, it would cost far too many lives if we tried it now!

 

Yetis are ok, so long as they're not the 1.2 petrol version with the dodgy DSG gearbox!

 

 

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I had the 1.6 in Czech Republic, yes they are "OK" but I prefer the Fabia if I had a choice. I'm on my third 7 speed DSG 'box, I wouldn't go back to manual now if I had the choice, brilliant gearbox...

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7 hours ago, martin_wynne said:

It feels good to retain a link with the past and use the traditional units. Some of them are very sensible, derived from centuries of practical use. For example UK shoe sizes are still based on a 1 barleycorn difference between each full size. A barleycorn is 1/3rd of an inch.

 

 

... and hence 3 barleycorn = 25.4 mm.

 

We can carry on reliably using customary, traditional, imperial, or whatever units because they are defined by their ratio to the corresponding unit in the SI.

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