why is petrol sold in litres?

[bednobs]

and if it's to do with the EU, why are cars still made quoting MPG? Shouldn't it be MPL?

[ChuckFickens]

No, it should be kilometres per litre.

Yes it is to do with the EU why petrol is in litres.... and MPG is to do with the fact we still use miles on our road signs and because MPG is what people understand

[Old_Geezer]

It's sold in litres because the Europhiles insisted. We quote in mpg because it's still the demand of the public who have grown up with an instinctive feel for those units; and not being a selling thing it's more difficult to rule over.

Now all we need if a return to sensible Fahrenheit temperatures as the default for the weather forecast.

[Old_Geezer]

Oh, and of course a U turn to return to our incandescent light bulbs.

[ChuckFickens]

I don't understand how people can't deal with the idea that things can be measured in more than one unit. I can deal perfectly well with Fahrenheit, centigrade, miles, kilometres, feet, meters..... it really makes no difference, whatever you are measuring is still the same size regardless of the units in use.

[plautus]

But with temperatures in Fahrenheit I have an instant idea of just how hot or cold it is, with Centigrade I don't - I have to convert.

[ChuckFickens]

That's not the units at fault though, it's the person reading them.

[Old_Geezer]

A lifetime of familiarity is not a fault with an individual.

[bednobs]

i wanted to work out approximately how much i was spending per mile in petrol. there was a lot of jiggery pokery trying to work litres into gallons then gallons into miles, and i was thinking how much simpler it would be without that extra sum in the middle. My car is German BTW

[vulcan]

But why do people use both measurements on the same item ?Plywood sheet 6x4 but 25mm thick for example.

[vallaw]

I strongly believe that those of us who grew up in pre-decimal days are much better at mental arithmetic than later generations. We converted effortlessly - pence to shillings, ounces to pounds, inches to feet etc.

[ChuckFickens]

An inability to adapt is though.

I've been brought up using metric yet I've had to learn to understand imperial because it's still used by so many people.

[nannybooby]

Plautus - I agree I dont hae the foggiest how hot 19degrees C is.
And why is petrol sold in litres so that motorists dont faint with shock as they would if it was in price per gallon, also they would need much larger signs to display prices.

[cazzz1975]

i can read metric and imperial without converting, I think its more to do with exposure to different types of measurements rather than other units seeming confusing, the more you interact with these different types the more natural it will seem and he less need you will have to make a conversion.

[jd_here]

Sorry, you've all got it wrong. The reason it's priced in litres is so the motorist doesn't realise how much they are getting ripped off by the government and the fuel companies. How many of us realise we are paying around £6.30 a gallon?

[Old_Geezer]

There is a difference in understanding something, but having to convert to get a feel of the real meaning, and having an instinctive feel for it. I get the feeling some folk have no empathy for older folk having to endure unnecessary change. On other sites too, opinions of the type "I can cope, so it's you that must be daft", seems to be acceptable.

[bednobs]

it works the other way though - i have no sense what say 60 degrees farenheight is (super chilly? Balmy?) but i know that 30 degrees c is hot and 5 is not!

[ChuckFickens]

But you've made it perfectly clear what your attitude is to change, OG with the sentence "Now all we need if a return to sensible Fahrenheit temperatures"

From reading that it sounds like you don't want to deal with new units as you think they are stupid rather than you can't deal with them because they are complicated.

[cazzz1975]

believe me OG, I really struggle with numbers and I taught myself the differences, you dont have to learn them, its not compulsary and you can always use converters. the future generations are learning metric so it will always be around

I think the price in litres probably looks a lot more favourable than the price of a gallon ;)

[rojash]

plautus "But with temperatures in Fahrenheit I have an instant idea of just how hot or cold it is, with Centigrade I don't - I have to convert. "

You should have said earlier. I'm sure if they'd known it was you, they wouldn't have bothered inventing the Celsius scale.

[Frank97]

I always makes me smile that when it's hot we seem to prefer Fahrenheit but when it's cold we seem to prefer Centigrade.