THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 22, 1994 TAG: 9407220017
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 45 lines
The Federal Highway Administration, in an uncommon show of common sense, has postponed requiring states to convert road signs to the metric system. Even more sensible would be dropping the requirement altogether.
American resistance to the metric system dates to the country's infancy, when no less an influential leader than Thomas Jefferson was unable to convince Congress to adopt the French decimal system. Now, not even the threat of losing federal highway funds convinces Americans to switch from the English system of gallons, pounds and feet to metric measures.
The conversion move has taken more turns than a mountain path. At one time, there was firm commitment for the United States to adopt metric measures, which are used by every other industrialized nation. It was ditched in Congress in 1976, then resurrected in 1988. Such wavering should have convinced government long ago that few people are willing or able to switch their thinking to metric, to think in terms of 100 kmh instead of 62 mph, for instance.
Now, the opponents say, how about repairing our rutted roads and decaying bridges instead of making states spend about $200 million to change road signs in ways that we don't understand anyway? Good question, especially since Congress earlier prohibited the use of any of this year's $18 billion in shared federal highway money to convert the signs. Ah, mandate heaven: Dictate changes, then provide nothing to make them happen.
The General Assembly also acted last year to ban the use of state funds to change signs. As long as nobody pays, nothing will happen.
Rodney Slater, the federal highway administrator, says the metric-by-96 postponement is just that. However, there is no timetable for conversion.
That certainly seems to suit most Americans, who just don't buy the argument that metrics make life simple. What's simple, they say, is ``Norfolk, 80 miles,'' not ``Norfolk, 150 kilometers.''
The government may dictate the metric system, but that doesn't mean we like it one milligram. by CNB