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Discussion » Statements » Rosie's Corner » Does the rest of the world have the Driver's seat on the right and use the Metric system? Not in America. We don't fit in. Did we ever try?

Does the rest of the world have the Driver's seat on the right and use the Metric system? Not in America. We don't fit in. Did we ever try?

Posted - August 8, 2020

Responses


  • 3680
    Most other countries have vehicles with the driver's seat on the left and driven on the right-hand side of the road, as in the USA.

    On the other hand the USA is now the only significant nation not to use the Metric System (or officially, its SI derivative) for everyday trade and commerce, although American scientists and lot of engineers use it, especially on collaborative work.

    Also of course, most manufactured items imported by the USA are now made to Metric units unless specified otherwise by for example, US designers. In which case it's probably made in millimetres on metric-calibrated machines, but to odd numbers of them!

    Do you use imported foods and household products? If so, look on the labels and see if they are in Imperial or metric units of volume or weight. 


    '

    I used to use Wikipedia's "Answers" forum, and its Maths section was cluttered with what appeared to be American children's homework questions about converting between  metric and US Imperial. How many km in 40 miles, that sort of thing.

    The true method is to look in any number of published sources, for the appropriate conversion factor by which you multiply the original to find the equivalent. 

    The poor dears were plagued by two or three trolls, frankly, wilfully confusing the issue with long and sometimes incorrect chains of intermediate conversions and multiplications, and invoking Algebra (needlessly and then not used) and Dimensional Analysis (totally wrongly - these are not Dimensional Analyses.)

    Oh - the answer to the example? I picked a number easy to convert by mental arithmetic. 40 miles = 40 X 8/5 = 64km - accurately enough for most real journeys.
      August 8, 2020 5:08 PM MDT
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  • 113301
    Thank you for thoughtful and helpful reply Durdle. I will tell you how I crossed swords with the metric system. I ordered a cookbook (I think it was a book club selection) long ago and when I received it I couldn't use it. METRIC system recipes. I was exasperated of course but it was my own fault. I didn't research it enough. The book is somewhere in a box in the garage. I just didn't want to bother to research conversion to pints and cups and so I put it "away". Too lazy I expect. You bring up a scary something though. Trolls. Purposely bolloxed up instructions/directions to something. You have to know enough to know when you are reading gibberish. When you don't what happens? Something else to worry about. I never get involved on internet "conspiracy" theory stuff. I can't think of one that ever made any sense that  I took seriously. Why is it that folks get so caught up in them? I'm going to ask!
      August 9, 2020 1:48 AM MDT
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  • 16199
    About 35% of all vehicles in the world are built with right-hand drive. And are driven in British Commonwealth countries. Canada is the only exception. I've explained one reason why in another thread.
      August 8, 2020 5:34 PM MDT
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  • 113301
    Yes. That other thread was very helpful. A map is available showing which countries are right-hand and which are left-hand. Green was used for left-seat drivers and orange was used to right. I was SHOCKED at how few are right seat drivers. It was a very useful thing to actually see graphically. So are cars with left seat driver illegal in the U.K? I'll ask. Thank you for your reply R! :)
      August 9, 2020 1:38 AM MDT
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