Editing Encyclopedia:Measurements Debate (section)

==California is metric?==
: (cough) point of information :-) Canada is metric, and California state highways use km, at least that's what [[metrication]] says -- [[User:Tarquin|Tarquin]]
:: Double cough -- the km/mile experiment failed badly and new CA highway signs only use miles and the above was just to point out that comparing an entire continent to one country is not a valid comparison. Canada and the US do work together in a way very similar to the EU when it comes to economics. The Euro may strengthen economics ties between European nations to similar levels seen between US States in the future though. Also economics isn't a reason for this at all -- there are 280 million native English speakers in the US. How many native English speakers are there in Europe? --[[User:Maveric149|mav]]
:::The California km experiment probably had more to do with Mexico being metric than Canada.  I suspect that there are still signs in kilometres in the southern part of the state, especially on the northbound side of the highways. (Bigger signs give better cover for hidden INS agents. :-))  The number of English speakers in Europe is not a significant fact because metrication is not a language issue.  The history of this subject in the US is bizarre.  For a chronology see http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/dates.htm [[User:Eclecticology|Eclecticology]]
::::This happened just after New Zealand road signs became metric. My mom was driving to Christchurch once and she was doing 95 miles (over 150 km) an hour on one stretch of motorway (when the speed sign actually said 100 km/h and not 100 mph.) She got a hefty fine for it. --[[User:Scott Gall|Scott Gall]]

=== America is metric, too ===

They just put miles on the signs.  All the measurements are actually in km, though.  Or so they say... - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 04:05, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

The USA has used metric (in an indirect sense) for quite some time (for over a century IIRC) -- American version of imperial units have been defined in terms of metric units (e.g. the inch is defined to be 2.54cm). -- Naoto