Documentaries and science programmesĭocumentaries and science programmes often use kilometres. You can find out more about British motorcycle tests in a previous MV article at. Motorcycle tests include an emergency stop at 50 km/h, which is the standard speed limit for urban areas throughout Europe, except the UK of course. The speed limiters used for big vehicles are based on kilometres per hour, which is incompatible with official speed limit signs on British roads. Tachographs use kilometres to record the travel distances for big vehicles. Tachographs and speed limiters for large vehicles ![]() High Speed 1īritain’s only high-speed line, HS1, from London St Pancras to Folkestone, has speed limit signs in km/h (shown as “KMH”). I wrote about this in a previous Metric Views article, which you can find at. Information about funfair rides was given in metric units, including speeds in kilometres per hour. Despite the fact that the Ordnance Survey is exclusively metric and is the basis for commercial map makers, dual-measurement road atlases are undoubtedly strongly influenced by the continued use of miles on British roads. Typically, the scales use both miles and kilometres. Commercial road atlasesĬommercial road atlases use kilometre-based gridlines and dual scales. Ordnance Survey maps use a kilometre-based grid and have used metric scales for over forty years. These signs are only intended for tram drivers. The black digits that appear on these signs represent tram speed limits in kilometres per hour. As the metric ERTMS signalling system is rolled out over the next 20 years, the use of kilometres will increase on British railways (see for more details).ĭiamond-shaped speed signs for tram drivers use a white background with a black border. Modern British tram and railway systems such as the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) and the Croydon tram network are entirely metric and use kilometres. So canal and river signs must show kilometres for distances and kilometres per hour for speed limits. Canal and river navigation signsĬanal and river signs are not covered by the derogation for the continued use of miles, yards, feet and inches on British road signs. Television and radio programmes aimed at an international audience that are broadcast in the UK, such as BBC Newsday, tend to use kilometres. ![]() Some have a policy of letting their journalists use what units they like. However, some national British newspapers appear to prefer miles to kilometres. Some newspapers and magazines use kilometres to express long distances in their reports, either alone or alongside miles. Contrary to the impression created by groups that specialise in vandalising signs, those which have planning permission meet legal requirements whatever units are used. Kilometres are shown on some footpath signs around the UK, either alone or alongside miles. These reference markers are used by the emergency services to locate incidents. Driver location signs and marker postsĭriver location signs and marker posts show the number of kilometres from the start of the motorway. Emission levelsĮmission levels are expressed as grams per kilometre (g/km) in car advertisements and reviews. Typical values fall between 4 and 10 L/100 km. The lower the figure, the more fuel-efficient the vehicle. Official fuel efficiency figures for vehicles are expressed as litres per 100 kilometres (L/100 km). For example, the 25 yard line became the 22 metre line. Rugby footballįrom 1975, metric measures have been used in the game. English football remains Imperial, but the rights to broadcast it are sold worldwide and, as with Blue Planet 2, he or she who pays the piper calls the tune. I have occasionally been surprised when Match of the Day has shown the number of kilometres a footballer has run in a game among the statistics. There often seems to be a reluctance to use the symbol for the kilometre – km. Such long-distance races are often advertised as 5K and 10K races. The official distance of the marathon is 42.195 km. ![]() Although the Olympic Games have used metric units since their foundation in 1896, the Commonwealth Games did not adopt metric measures until 1970. These have been metric for as long as most people can remember. However, we are accustomed to using the kilometre in many different contexts in the UK, and this article looks at some of them. This is probably a consequence of the continued use of miles on road traffic signs, and contrasts with the widespread use of metric measures for shorter distances. In the UK, miles are generally preferred to kilometres, especially in the non-specialist media. Ronnie Cohen takes this opportunity to look at instances when kilometres are preferred to miles. As noted in a comment on our last article, the BBC’s acclaimed new series Blue Planet 2 uses metric measures for smaller distances and depths but miles for greater ones.
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