In a recent poll on this bulletin I asked you chaps if it was a good idea for me to buy a Toyota Prius – bearing in mind a few recall problems that you may just have heard about!
Well, as 58% of you thought it was OK - despite the media hype - for me to buy a hybrid Prius, I have. So if I end up warping into an oncoming DAF it’s you I’ll be blaming.
OK, I bought the thing second-hand, but I don’t care. I have that new car thrill – and with a faintly clearer conscience as I’m telling everyone the Prius is greener than Kermit’s nose when he has a bad cold. In fact there is some debate on how green it really is – the car, not Kermit’s nose, but it’s definitely a statement!
So thanks for the advice, everyone who chipped in on our poll. So far brakes and accelerator are behaving as expected and it’s a great vehicle. I love my new toy.
But buying it lead me into to a strange grey area that must drive everyone from fleet managers to traffic planners mad – metrification. My beloved was not entirely on-board with this whole Toyota buying thing – as regular readers will know. How many miles per gallon will it do compared to the little French thing I was driving, she asked. I replied glibly at least 20 mpg more. ‘How much does that save?’ came the not unreasonable response. You can’t get a lot past her; the day I stopped trying my life became a lot easier.
Anyway I stood with my mouth open, pondering. Dribbling slightly. I had to confess I hadn’t the ghost of an idea as petrol pumps work in litres not gallons. I’m sure you’ll be able to tell me a simple mathematical equation to translate litres to gallons, but do bear in mind I’ve never quite got the hang of long division. Or adding up anything that goes beyond my number of fingers!
I think, bafflingly, it’s even illegal for forecourts to quote gallon price – in the same way a street trader could be done for shouting out the price for a lb of apples.
If you are involved in manufacturing, you’ll know the problem of metric vs. imperial measurements. In fact that problem stuffed the entire 1998 Mars Climate Orbiter mission. The $327.6 million project had a tiny setback when it splatted into Mars because a piece of software had been programmed in imperial rather than metric measurements. Oops.
And why are we even measuring distances in miles rather than kilometres these days? When I was ‘educated’ – I use the word loosely – in the free love and free spelling late 60s and 70s we learned metric right from the get-go. That’s because it was always planned that the UK would switch over to metric some time in the 70s, just as we decimalised in ‘71.
But somewhere along the way governments completely bottled things and now, even though I think in centimetres and metres, miles are the only thing indicated on road signs, oh and yards. How long is a yard? And don’t tell me the answer in feet because I don’t know what they are either.
My wife was bought up in the US, where she learned imperial measurements at school. Of course it being the American empire rather than the British one, even our Imperial measurements are not the same – US gallons are different than UK ones. Sigh.
It’s odd because I quite like tradition. When shops had to stop quoting lbs in prices I thought it was a great shame – even though I have no idea what they are and what I do know seems a nightmare of fractions.
I’d probably have fought against decimalisation because I loved old pennies and sixpences – even though a money system based on 12 rather than 10 (there were 12 shillings to a pound for those of you younger than a million) is clearly rubbish.
And I’d hate to see nice old road signs in Dorset lanes (they have carved tops) pulled down because they read miles rather than km. But, rather like supporting the pound when it’s so eye-poppingly more sensible to adopt the Euro if you like popping over to Europe or do business overseas, my traditional instincts are probably wrong.
I own a hybrid Prius now not a Morris Minor. Time to embrace change!
Is it time, for the good of the country, that our new Transport Planning Professional Sector or Public Policies Committee wakes everyone up? Should the voice of the Institute swing behind the kilometre? Or are you worried is it the thin end of the wedge, and that if we give Europe an inch will they take a kilometre… so to speak. Let me know your views!
David Jinks
Editor
.
