That’s because a nautical mile = 1degree of longtitude at the equator. Orys just use the height conversion chart in your truckers atlas to get the metric height of your truck and remember that as well.
tofer:
That’s because a nautical mile = 1degree of longtitude at the equator. Orys just use the height conversion chart in your truckers atlas to get the metric height of your truck and remember that as well.
Not quite, Its 1 degree of latitude at the Equator.
alamcculloch:
Not quite, Its 1 degree of latitude at the Equator.
Not quite, it’s 1 minute of latitude at the Equator.
[quote="orys
As for LHD and RHD issue. I had unexperienced situatuion recently. I left my bicycle in service and when I was approaching them to pick my bicycle up, i seen the mechanic trying to ride my bike and hitting the wall - it turned up that in European bike the brakes are opposite way - I got my front brake on the left and rear brake on the right…
That even has some sense, as I can turn left on my bike and showing my direction with raised arm while braking at the same time… It’s not so easy when turning right…
Orys, is your bike a left hand drive or a right hand drive 
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mushroomman:
Orys, is your bike a left hand drive or a right hand drive
I guess is a “Safe-turning-left-only-when-braking-and-signaling-at-the-same-time bike”
Orys, in the old days did they have Penny Farthing bicycles on the continent and what did they call them 
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I don’t know - maybe “Ruble-10 kopeykas”? 
Penny farthing was a slang name,they were properly called high ordinaries.
Don’t know if this is true, but it may shed some light on the matter of standard sizes!!
The US standard railroad gauge (the width between the two rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That’s an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that’s the way they built them in Britain, and British expatriates built the US railroads. Why did the British build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used. Why did “they” use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons which used that wheel spacing. Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome for their legions built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England). The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots first formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder “what horse’s ■■■ came up with this,” you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of
two war horses. Thus, we have the answer to the original question.
Now the extraterrestrial twist to the story…
When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses’ behinds. So, the major design feature
of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse’s ■■■. Remember this the next time you ponder how far modern civilization has progressed from our ancient roots!
I don’t think Gardun is ‘horseing’ around with those facts but I won’t ask him as he will probably say ‘neigh’ …
… I know…
TAXI !!
Why are vehicle tyre sizes a mixture of imperial and metric?
orys:
…But why I started that thread is: why they can’t decide and use one system only? If people in this country are happy to use imperial system, use imperial everywhere (adding metric from time to time in places popular among tourist from civilised world
Hi orys, Your answer is one that I’ve heard several times before, but that doesn’t mean it’s any the less valid. 
I only put the questions I wrote in order to demonstrate that neither system is as good as either side makes out.
In the way that the measurements of time are based on real events, the Imperial system IMHO is simply an extension of that idea. For some reason, the Imperial system has endured for longer than the national systems in many countries. I’ve no idea about this, but I do have to ask whether Poland had its own measurement/weight system before the metric system came about? If so, when did Poland go metric? Can you remember the ‘old’ system?
The tourists from the civilised world probably struggle with the Imperial system because they are used to counting to 9, then making a new column to the left. (Denary system.)
In the Imperial system, the maximum number in the column varies from column to column, so what could be difficult about that? (Then, these are different again depending on whether it’s weight, volume or distance that’s being discussed.)
In standard (international) maths, there’s binary, ternary and hexadecimal etc, so ours is just another system of advanced thinking. God save the Queen.
orys:
As for LHD and RHD issue. I had unexperienced situatuion recently. I left my bicycle in service and when I was approaching them to pick my bicycle up, i seen the mechanic trying to ride my bike and hitting the wall - it turned up that in European bike the brakes are opposite way - I got my front brake on the left and rear brake on the right…
IMHO, that’s one and the same question as above, because I think it’s to do with which system a person learns first. Stretching that point a little, it can also apply to languages…
Everybody has a ‘mother’ tongue, then other languages are (normally) learned as extras, except for a situation in which a child is born to parents of different nationalities and learns both languages simultaneously.
I think these differences are fun, because it would be boring if we were all the same. (Metric.) 
?
spd0121:
?
Because it’s fun.
dieseldave:
but I do have to ask whether Poland had its own measurement/weight system before the metric system came about? If so, when did Poland go metric? Can you remember the ‘old’ system?
Yeah. In middle ages every country had it’s own mile. So we had a “polish mile” and it was much better than a British one, as it was well over 7 km long
Also they were other units like:
Åokieć (known here as the cubit) - usually a bit less than 60 cm
SążeÅ„ (known here as a fathom) - usually about 3 Åokcie
Staje - about 84 Åokci.
Åaszt - cubic unit, a bit more than 3000 litres, split into 30 korce or 60 szefli.
Morga, aerial unit - it was as much of the land, as it could be ploughed by one man and a ox from the morning till noon. For obvious reasons it was dependable of the local conditions…
Pud ~ 16 kgs…
ZdrowaÅ›ka: this is funny unit, for time and the distance. It’s a distance possible to walk while praying one “Ave maria” in Polish Also pacierz, similar one, but you have to pray “Pater noster”
I don’t know exactly when Poland converted to metric system, I would guess that it was also in 1918. I can be sure, that I do not remember it 
dieseldave:
A few of us are old enough to remember when the £ had 20 Shillings or 240 Pennies, so the same folks will probably also remember the great Metric rip-off when we went ‘decimal.’
Worth pointing out Dave that whilst many countries still use Imperial units for measurement, Great Britain was almost on its own with its currency system. The change to a decimal system was inevitable, driven more than anything else I suspect by a realisation that electronic tills and computing systems could not cope with the old currency.
Also worth pointing out that in the early 1970’s, there were periods when inflation was at levels of up to 20%. The confusion over the two systems (where one shilling or tweve old pennies became five new pence) didn’t help older people it’s true but it was not solely responsible.
I remember when we changed over from Imperial to the Metric system.
Parliment said that if anybody was caught selling goods in lbs and oz, and not in Kgs after the change, then the Government would come down on them like a Ton of bricks 
gardun:
So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder “what horse’s ■■■ came up with this,” you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of
two war horses.
gardun:
When we see a Space Shuttle… the major design feature
of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse’s ■■■.
ROG:
I don’t think Gardun is 'horseing’ around with those facts but I won’t ask him as he will probably say ‘neigh’ …
Fame and recognition at last!
Guess I won’t be standing in my best trackie bottoms, looking at my backside in the mirror and asking:
Does my bum look big in this?
As the response might be: “As big as a space shuttle rocket booster!”
Whether metric or imperial, that just can’t be good! 