[WikiEN-l] Metric road signs in the U. S.

Mon May 16 19:35:14 UTC 2005

>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>

>Road signs haven't switched because it would be very difficult and
>dangerous as well as politically explosive.

Actually, in the seventies, there was a widespread systematic effort to add 
distances in kilometers to road signs. I think it may have been an Interstate 
highway requirement. Many signs DID get changed, enough for them to become a 
reasonably familiar sight. Cars produced during that time period had both 
miles per hours and kilometers per hour marked on their speedometers, although 
odometers continued to read in miles.

I'm not completely sure what happened subsequently.

I do NOT remember any political "explosion" at all. Just apathy. 

I believe that the requirement was dropped and that the dual-system signs were 
just gradually, in the natural course of sign replacement, replaced with signs 
giving distances only in miles.