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The most recent candidate under the DNC banner is Lincoln Chafee who interestingly, besides being the lone Republican (he switched parties) to vote against the Iraq war, is vehemently pro-metric system. I remember when I was a kid, the freeway signs for distance and speed were printed in both English and metric. Converting all those signs from miles to km (again) would cost money, but then, using the English measurement system costs money too, forever -- according to a random guy I googled up without putting any real effort into it because I'm not that interested in proving myself wrong (Paul Naughtin), somewhere between six billion and a trillion. There are without a doubt, critics who might call that somewhat of a wide margin but as one witty commenter noted: "It is probably impossible to give an upper bound on that, however I can give you a lower bound: 500 Million Dollars for the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter by NASA".
Now, I'm neither a firm GOP nor DNC voter... but I'm tempted.
takyon: Former Governor of Rhode Island Lincoln Chafee joins a number of other candidates seeking a 2016 U.S. presidential nomination.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Saturday June 06 2015, @04:02PM
All highway signs have a replacement schedule per the federal highway acts. I think it's something like 10 years. In that stretch we could add metric speeds to all signs, and then another 10 to take off the imperial units. Added cost: zero.
I'm more worried in the conversion from imperial to metric the speed limits will be lowered back to multiples of five, rather than raised. We can only get to zero deaths via enforcement fascism, and the Nazis did use metric units.
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(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday June 06 2015, @04:48PM
I'm more worried in the conversion from imperial to metric the speed limits will be lowered back to multiples of five, rather than raised.
This is probably part of the problem, seriously. People distrust government measures like this for a good reason: it usually isn't progress, it's regressive. A common story about the attempted conversion to metric back in the 70s was that when they started selling gasoline in liters instead of gallons, the service station owners all bumped the prices up significantly, thinking people wouldn't notice because they wouldn't bother to do the actual conversion. Well word got out and people were pissed, and distrusted metrification attempts ever since. Someone always has to try to pull a fast one when there's a change like this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @08:54PM
Well actually NO. The cost will at least double for those 10 years and most like be 4x more. The signs will be twice the size so twice the cost to replace. Then add they are heavier, so the poles holding them will be replaced or a second added to next to first so it is double pole.