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QuietEd2019 · 31-35, M
@samueltyler2 still is US gallon is 3.785 litres
Imperial Gallon is 4.546 litres
Imperial Gallon is 4.546 litres
samueltyler2 · 80-89, M
@QuietEd2019 wow, I haven't live in the UK for a long time, I am surprised things are still the same.
QuietEd2019 · 31-35, M
@samueltyler2 in regards to high fuel costs or use of imperial standard gallons mpg UK is based of imperial measurements too so probably reads higher than would be advertised in US
samueltyler2 · 80-89, M
@QuietEd2019 not sure what you are saying, but, yes if someone in the UK expresses the cost per gallon in an attempt to compare to the US, you would need to correct for the almost a third more volume in the imperial gallon. It still is more expensive, but not as bad.
QuietEd2019 · 31-35, M
@samueltyler2 indeed imperial gallon is 1.2 US gallons so a us fuel efficiency of 24 miles to US gallon would be 28.8 miles on a U.K. gallon
samueltyler2 · 80-89, M
@QuietEd2019 isn't it amazing how so many aren't aware of this. Then, when you go to etric countries you buy by the litre!
QuietEd2019 · 31-35, M
@samueltyler2 our fuel is sold in litres but efficiency is measured in gallons U.K. is particularly peculiar as in Europe it’s sell in litres then efficiency is x litres per 100km
samueltyler2 · 80-89, M
@QuietEd2019 that is really confusing!
QuietEd2019 · 31-35, M
@samueltyler2 yep the country just has to be different
ninalanyon · 61-69, T
@QuietEd2019 liter pr mil in Norway where one mil is ten kilometres.
QuietEd2019 · 31-35, M
@ninalanyon oh wow okay 😳
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@ninalanyon Different again then, in Norway!
1 mil is only 16 miles!
That doesn't seem very far for measuring consumption in a country with very long distances and a lot of very long hills.
The 24 miles (for 24mpg) of QuietEd's example - heavy consumption by modern standards even if using US gallons - is 38.4km = 3.84 mil.
1 mil is only 16 miles!
That doesn't seem very far for measuring consumption in a country with very long distances and a lot of very long hills.
The 24 miles (for 24mpg) of QuietEd's example - heavy consumption by modern standards even if using US gallons - is 38.4km = 3.84 mil.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@samueltyler2 Still is larger. The two types of gallon developed long before attempts to standardise measures across trades were made.
The US Gallon was an old vintners' one, which would be logical to use because the earliest settlers would have used casks for storing water and food on their lengthy trans-Atlantic voyages.
The curious anomaly by which road fuels, like virtually all commodities, are sold in Metric units but we still use mpg for fuel consumption arises because the only legal units for road distances, hence speeds and fuel use, in the United Kingdom are still the Statute Mile and the Yard.
The railways still use them too, but they also seem to still use the Chain (22 yards) not used for road measuring.
You might ask why we didn't change these all to kilometres and metres.
The answer is simple.
Prohibitive cost and practical difficulties. There would be probably some millions of direction and speed-limit signs to replace in a very short time; and now also changes to the very complicated traffic "management" systems installed on long lengths of the motorways. (Those show the speed limits, varied according to traffic flow and exit/entry congestion, on digital signs.)
For such a compact area geographically, Britain has an extraordinarily dense and complicated road network that is expanding as towns expand; and most of the roads have at least some sign-posts for direction, speeds, warnings, etc.
Also all the vehicles on the roads show mph and miles travelled, with km/h only as "small print" extras on the speedometers. Modern cars with very intensive electronic system and displays might be switchable between standards, but I don't know that.
Nor do I know if the tachographs fitted to all Heavy Goods Vehicles and Public Service Vehicles can be re-set to metric easily: they might be, to cope with travelling between Britain and the Continent.
The Police would need all their speed-radars re-setting and calibrating, too!
The US Gallon was an old vintners' one, which would be logical to use because the earliest settlers would have used casks for storing water and food on their lengthy trans-Atlantic voyages.
The curious anomaly by which road fuels, like virtually all commodities, are sold in Metric units but we still use mpg for fuel consumption arises because the only legal units for road distances, hence speeds and fuel use, in the United Kingdom are still the Statute Mile and the Yard.
The railways still use them too, but they also seem to still use the Chain (22 yards) not used for road measuring.
You might ask why we didn't change these all to kilometres and metres.
The answer is simple.
Prohibitive cost and practical difficulties. There would be probably some millions of direction and speed-limit signs to replace in a very short time; and now also changes to the very complicated traffic "management" systems installed on long lengths of the motorways. (Those show the speed limits, varied according to traffic flow and exit/entry congestion, on digital signs.)
For such a compact area geographically, Britain has an extraordinarily dense and complicated road network that is expanding as towns expand; and most of the roads have at least some sign-posts for direction, speeds, warnings, etc.
Also all the vehicles on the roads show mph and miles travelled, with km/h only as "small print" extras on the speedometers. Modern cars with very intensive electronic system and displays might be switchable between standards, but I don't know that.
Nor do I know if the tachographs fitted to all Heavy Goods Vehicles and Public Service Vehicles can be re-set to metric easily: they might be, to cope with travelling between Britain and the Continent.
The Police would need all their speed-radars re-setting and calibrating, too!
ninalanyon · 61-69, T
@ArishMell You have your arithmetic upside down. 16 km is 10 miles. En mil (one Norwegian mile) is 10 km, that's 6.2 miles
But most people don't drive those long distances very often.
For Norway it's 11 274 km, 7 005 miles
https://www.ssb.no/transport-og-reiseliv/landtransport/statistikk/kjorelengder
Long distance travel in Norway is mostly by public transport, air, train, bus. Oslo to Trondheim is about 700 km. In a very fuel efficient car, say 0.5 liter/mil (56 mpg) that's 35 litres each way which is very roughly 800 NOK. It takes about eight hours.
I've just checked SAS and it costs about 2 200 NOK return to fly (probably cheaper if you choose the right day) and takes 55 minutes each way.
Actually getting that mpg would be unlikely, the route is neither flat nor straight. And who wants to drive 700 km in a Nissan Micra.
The train takes about the same amount of time as driving and costs about the same as driving. Going by bus takes roughly the same amount of time and cost less.
But most people don't drive those long distances very often.
In 2022, the average U.S. driver drove 13,596 miles
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/how-many-miles-does-the-average-person-drive-a-year.htmln 2022, the average car in the UK drove 6,600 miles—down 28% from 9,200 miles in 2002
https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/cheap-car-insurance/average-car-mileage-ukFor Norway it's 11 274 km, 7 005 miles
https://www.ssb.no/transport-og-reiseliv/landtransport/statistikk/kjorelengder
Long distance travel in Norway is mostly by public transport, air, train, bus. Oslo to Trondheim is about 700 km. In a very fuel efficient car, say 0.5 liter/mil (56 mpg) that's 35 litres each way which is very roughly 800 NOK. It takes about eight hours.
I've just checked SAS and it costs about 2 200 NOK return to fly (probably cheaper if you choose the right day) and takes 55 minutes each way.
Actually getting that mpg would be unlikely, the route is neither flat nor straight. And who wants to drive 700 km in a Nissan Micra.
The train takes about the same amount of time as driving and costs about the same as driving. Going by bus takes roughly the same amount of time and cost less.
QuietEd2019 · 31-35, M
@ninalanyon or litres per 100 miles
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@QuietEd2019 I did wonder that! Why do people but them where and when they just do not need them, though?
There are some British motorists who seem to like driving around in lumping great builders' pick-ups, yet the most off-road they go is a car-park field at a village fete, and the most they might carry in the load space is an item of furniture.
That tendency started with the Range-Rover in its original, properly-off-road car guise, and so many were bought by the well-heeled living in the costliest parts of London the cars became nicknamed "Chelsea Tractors". Especially when the owner's idea of the countryside was somewhere to buy a second-home, despite the risk of their heavy off-road capable car getting dirty from mud dropped on the rural lanes by those awfully mucky farm vehicles.
The modern "Range Rover" and "Land-Rovers" are now just costly saloon-car badged as those, but whether they would be any good for serious towing, farm and quarry work, emergency-services and military use in bad conditions, or expeditions, I do not know. The originals were designed for such use. The modern things bearing the names look like any other plain modern saloon car with saloon-car limitations.
There are some British motorists who seem to like driving around in lumping great builders' pick-ups, yet the most off-road they go is a car-park field at a village fete, and the most they might carry in the load space is an item of furniture.
That tendency started with the Range-Rover in its original, properly-off-road car guise, and so many were bought by the well-heeled living in the costliest parts of London the cars became nicknamed "Chelsea Tractors". Especially when the owner's idea of the countryside was somewhere to buy a second-home, despite the risk of their heavy off-road capable car getting dirty from mud dropped on the rural lanes by those awfully mucky farm vehicles.
The modern "Range Rover" and "Land-Rovers" are now just costly saloon-car badged as those, but whether they would be any good for serious towing, farm and quarry work, emergency-services and military use in bad conditions, or expeditions, I do not know. The originals were designed for such use. The modern things bearing the names look like any other plain modern saloon car with saloon-car limitations.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@ninalanyon No, it doesn't. I don't know either, unless it is basic advertising psychology. The number of miles per litre is so much lower than per gallon, it would make the car seem very, very thirsty even though it is not.
It is though consistent with the distances, speed-limits, etc. based on the Statute Mile.
It is though consistent with the distances, speed-limits, etc. based on the Statute Mile.
samueltyler2 · 80-89, M
@ArishMell funny that you mentioned the mile standard, never understood why there is a nautical mile as well!
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@samueltyler2 I don't know the Statute Mile's origins but the Nautical Mile is based on the Erath's geometry, so compatible with navigation.
The definition quoted from Wikipedia is:
Since the French wanted something similar when they created the Metre and Kilometre I wonder why they didn't plump for the Nautical Mile, but I am not sure which was ratified first. The km is based on a fraction of the Earth's circumference.
The Statute Mile might have been based on divisions of what were reasonable distances for people and horses to travel in one day when walking and horse-riding were the only means of transport.
.
All the early systems of measurement were anthropocentric and/or or based on individual trades' conventions, for perfectly fair reasons, but of course they are incompatible and incoherent between scales within each system, let alone between systems. I don't though have much time for the sneers about Mediaeval kings' feet and the like, because those origin-stories might well be apocryphal anyway.
I am not entirely a fan of the ISO's Systèmè Internationale though. Although it is all very neat and tidy mathematically so greatly simplifying science and engineering, parts of it are not very practical for everyday use, with the Pascal (for pressure) perhaps the silliest.
For practical work I can use inches or mm (but not the un-Preferred centimetre!) equally easily.
The definition quoted from Wikipedia is:
A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute of latitude at the equator...
Since the French wanted something similar when they created the Metre and Kilometre I wonder why they didn't plump for the Nautical Mile, but I am not sure which was ratified first. The km is based on a fraction of the Earth's circumference.
The Statute Mile might have been based on divisions of what were reasonable distances for people and horses to travel in one day when walking and horse-riding were the only means of transport.
.
All the early systems of measurement were anthropocentric and/or or based on individual trades' conventions, for perfectly fair reasons, but of course they are incompatible and incoherent between scales within each system, let alone between systems. I don't though have much time for the sneers about Mediaeval kings' feet and the like, because those origin-stories might well be apocryphal anyway.
I am not entirely a fan of the ISO's Systèmè Internationale though. Although it is all very neat and tidy mathematically so greatly simplifying science and engineering, parts of it are not very practical for everyday use, with the Pascal (for pressure) perhaps the silliest.
For practical work I can use inches or mm (but not the un-Preferred centimetre!) equally easily.
samueltyler2 · 80-89, M
@ArishMell the people at the time the nautical.mile was established had no idea of the Earth's geometry. I do know the origin of the fathom, and knots. It is interesting history.
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