Where the law has mandated that's where you'll see specific use of measures. For example - it's illegal to have road signs in km or metres and it's illegal to have price of food in lb's only.
In day to day speech the lean is definitely towards imperial (as Martin pointed out). 'Behind the scenes' there will be a leaning towards metric. There are other strange effects too - whereas people tend to quote inches when approximating a short length I would wager a bet that under a quarter of an inch people would switch to millimetres. IMHO 'mm' has filled a position where awkward fractions of an inch used to be. In the medical field (and science) the use of metric rules (and IMHO should do) although people tend to quote their own stats in imperial. Doctors are very good in handling both systems when it comes to this. Telling your doctor you 'dropped 2 stone in 4 weeks' will give him or her the information he/she needs Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 09:16:27 -0800 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: [USMA:42515] Re: Small item seen on TV To: [email protected]; [email protected] When you say the UK is bi, do you mean they use both metric and English equally,? 50 % ? Or is there more of a leaning towards one or the other? How are both use equally without causing confusion? Say for instance in the medical field. Would a doctor speak metric and a nurse respond in English? It must make for some strange communications. Jerry From: Stephen Humphreys <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 11:40:08 AM Subject: [USMA:42515] Re: Small item seen on TV Because the UK is not metric (it's 'bi') and in the case of tyre pressures there are not laws forcing the use of metric. Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 08:00:18 -0800 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: [USMA:42494] Re: Small item seen on TV To: [email protected]; [email protected] Stephen, I interpreted the statement to mean that bar and kPa were the most common. It doesn't mean the is no psi, it just means it isn't very common. If the UK is metric then why would psi dominate and not kPa? Jerry From: Stephen Humphreys <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 10:27:02 AM Subject: [USMA:42494] Re: Small item seen on TV Except in the UK (which is part of Europe) where PSI dominates. Maybe you meant "Mainland Europe" From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:42439] Re: Small item seen on TV Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2009 15:22:34 +0000 The most common units of measure for tyre pressures in Europe are bars or kPa. (100 kPa = 1 bar). From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jeremiah MacGregor Sent: 24 January 2009 14:59 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:42430] Re: Small item seen on TV Harry, Aren't they suppose to be in pascals or something along that line? Jerry From: Harry Wyeth <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 11:39:58 PM Subject: [USMA:42388] Small item seen on TV A minor point of interest: on PBS's US broadcast of the BBC World News tonight, in a piece re the resumption of natural gas to Europe, there was "footage" showing close-ups of presssure gauges on pipeline fixtures out in the snowy fields. One showed pressure in kg/cm2, and the other in "bar". HARRY WYETH Share your photos with Windows Live Photos – Free Find out more! Windows Live Hotmail just got better. Find out more! _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail, Messenger, Photos and more - all with the new Windows Live. Get started! http://www.download.live.com/
