' 56 YARDS TO THE GALLON' was the intriguing title of the lead article in the Motoring Section of today's 'Daily Telegraph'.

Subtitled: "Size Matters", it went on to say: "It does 56 yards to the gallon...so it won't be the next big thing on the school run (we hope). But outrageously powerful monster trucks such as this, originally developed in America, are now appearing in Britain".

The trucks turn out to be 'Bigfoot 17's, and below are some verbatim extracts from the article, by-lined by Richard Simpson:

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"If you have ever fantasised about driving straight over every car ahead of you in a traffic jam, Nigel Morris is one of the few people in the country who can advise you on what techniques to employ. Mind you, his approach only works if you're in a full-on monster truck like Bigfoot 17.

"For example, the supercharged, 514 cubic inch (8,423cc), methanol-swilling Ford V8 engine pumps out a colossal 1,500bhp and will blast this five-ton, 10-ft high machine from standstill to 60mph in just 4.8 seconds...Nigel grins wickedley and says: 'At full throttle, it does 56 yards to the gallon'.

"Of course, it's those towering, 66in-high, 43in-wide Firestone tyres - originally designed for use on a crop sprayer - that really grab the attention...some racers pare most of the tread off their tyres, saving an extraordinary 500lb of unsprung weight in the process.

"But you don't want to hear about Bigfoot's colossal, nitrogen-charged gas springs with a 30in travel...

"Nigel says he first caught the big-truck bug when his hired 4x4 got bogged down while he was on holiday on a Hawaiian island...when he returned to Britain, he set about modifying his humble, £2,000, Toyota Hi-Lux pick-up. In the end he spent the little matter of £16,500 and his truck ended up standing more than 9ft tall.

"Nigel soon establised a business to offer a similar service to like-minded motorists, and Shane Lynch of Boyzone was an enthusiastic customer. The petrol-head pop-star was apparently plagued by hordes of young girls whenever he turned up to inspect progress on his Hi-Lux, though the 29in lift that he ordered...can't exactly have helped him maintain a low profile..."

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Interesting though all this is, it is very regrettable that the 'Daily Telegraph' should once again have disregarded the needs of its younger readers who have all been metric-only educated and would not of course be able to understand this article. To which I would wish to add my own sincere apologies to any young readers of this bulletin board for having failed to add any metric conversions (and I really mean that most sincerely, folks, I really do)

Wow! Makes the 20 mpg from my old 350 cu. in. V8 seem extremely economical.

Last time I heard yds/gal it was when they were describing concorde's fuel economy.


My mini is slightly better than that!

What has this post got to do with the debate of metrication/imperial? Just because its got a few imperial measures, you thought u'd post it to "show off".

PaulEOS wrote

<<
Wow! Makes the 20 mpg from my old 350 cu. in. V8 seem extremely economical.
>>

Paul, you lived in the US for many years. Are you talking US gallons or Imperial gallons. Had you used ltres, this question would of course been redundant.

<<<it is very regrettable that the 'Daily Telegraph' should once again have disregarded the needs of its younger readers>>>

Daily Telegraph, younger readers??!!

I don't know what you are trying to achieve by quoting the use of imperial measurement from a newspaper that is so anti-metric that it still uses Fahrenheit in its weather forecasts!

Would it be of any interest if I post every article I find in which metric measurements are used?

re (Andy):

"Daily Telegraph, younger readers??!!"

ANSWER: Yes, a lot more than younger readers of the Times, the Independent or the Guardian

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"Would it be of any interest if I post every article I find in which metric measurements are used?"

ANSWER: No, but what *would* be of very considerable interest is to sift through the most popular daily newspapers in this country, viz. the Sun, the Mail, the Mirror and the Telegraph in that order, read through all the news articles, features, other articles and readers' letters, and tell us how many times imperial measures are used as against metric measures

Using any yardstick, the proportion is well over 10 to 1 in favour of imperial, a fact so unwelcome that metric zealots often deny it.

The article '56 Yards to the Gallon' is but one example among countless others

<<
I don't know what you are trying to achieve by quoting the use of imperial measurement from a newspaper that is so anti-metric that it still uses Fahrenheit in its weather forecasts!
>>

At least the Daily Telegraph now give the heights of tides in metres. Some years ago it was only using feet in spite of the fact that the actual height indicator at the mouth of Dover harbour was only in metres.

<<<"Daily Telegraph, younger readers??!!"

ANSWER: Yes, a lot more than younger readers of the Times, the Independent or the Guardian>>>

I doubt that very much. I would say the Telegraph probably has the oldest readers of any British paper, and is strictly anti-metric, anti-anything European so I would be very surprised to come across any metric measurements in it at all. Same goes for the Sun and the Mail.

Hmmm. Wonder what proportion of newspaper sales these anti-metric newspapers account for? Wonder if the anti-metrication, anti-EU propoganda these papers print has any influence on public attitudes to metrication? Just a thought...

<<<Using any yardstick, the proportion is well over 10 to 1 in favour of imperial, a fact so unwelcome that metric zealots often deny it. >>>

I don't deny that the media overwhelmingly uses imperial (most of the denial seems to come from the anti-metric side), the lack of metric in the media is one of the things that frustrates me most about the issue. I can well believe your 10 to 1. The reason I think this is wrong is because the proportion of people more comfortable with metric is now a lot more than 1 in 10, and increasing all the time. I am not for one moment suggesting that younger people cannot comprehend imperial measures, but why should they not be able to see the measurements they have been taught, just because the older generations are too stubborn to change?
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Cue SteveH: Young people prefer imperial

re (Andy):

"the lack of metric in the media is one of the things that frustrates me most about the issue. I can well believe your 10 to 1. The reason I think this is wrong is because the proportion of people more comfortable with metric is now a lot more than 1 in 10, and increasing all the time".

REPLY:

1. The proportion of over 10 to 1 usage of imperial measures to metric in the media is exceeded significantly in everyday conversation by ordinary Brits. I would suggest by a factor of at least 20 to 1

2. re: "The proportion of people more comfortable with metric is now a lot more than 1 in 10..." - I don't thinks so.

Yes, more people are reasonably *familiar* with metric e.g. with the BBC's insistence on giving visibility distances on weather forecasts in metres instead of yards, rainfall in millimetres instead of inches, and snow level heights in metres rather than feet.

But familiarity is by no means the same as 'comfort'.

For example, a man may be very familiar with his mother-in-law, but be far from 'comfortable' about her, or with her.

I hasted to add I am very comfortable with my mother-in-law.

I am very familiar with metric but not at all 'comfortable' with it

Erm - sorry to say this Andy - but the Mirror is pro-EU and pro-labour etc etc.

It predimonantly uses imperial.

Tony - you mentioned "viz".

Indeed Viz does use imperial too!!! ;)

<<<But familiarity is by no means the same as 'comfort'.>>>

This may be the case for your generation, but for mine it is be the other way round. We are 'comfortable' with metric, because we 'understand' it. Many of my generation do not even know how many ounces in a pound, yards in a mile, boiling point in Fahrenheit etc etc. Of course, we also become 'familiar' with imperial because it is more commonly used in everyday conversation.

The proportions of imperial/metric use are impossible to define (especially not using a biased survey with some other issue behind it), because it depends on the situation. It is easy to exaggerate preference for imperial.

For example: 99.9% of people will talk about babies weights in lbs/oz. Does that mean 99.9% of people prefer lbs/oz to kg?

Given that almost half the population have now been educated only in metric, I think you are way out with your 20 to 1. Whatever the exact proportions one thing is clear and cannot be desputed (although I wouldn't bet against someone disputing it!) - imperial usage/familiarity/comfort with/etc is DECLINING and metric usage/familiarity etc is INCREASING
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Cue SteveH: Imperial becoming more popular
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So which direction does it make sense for the media to go in?

<<
Erm - sorry to say this Andy - but the Mirror is pro-EU and pro-labour etc etc.

It predimonantly uses imperial.
>>

I had a spell of reading the Daily Mirror and I actually noticed how much metric was used. For example, you may remember about a year ago, some terrorists tried to bring down an Isreali plane in Kenya and only it just missed. I remember the headline on the Mirror the following day was "One Metre from Massacre". That is the only example I can think of right now but I shall look on the Mirror's website for further examples.

I have noticed that too. The Mirror and the Guardian and other papers without major issues against the EU tend to use whatever units were quoted, so a mixture depending on what the source is.

The Mail, Telegraph and Sun however convert everything into imperial

"The Mail, Telegraph and Sun however convert everything into imperial"

They do, even if the conversions are convoluted.

Converting every metric measurement which moves is surely at least as dogmatic as some of the claims against metriphiles.

re: "I had a spell of reading the Daily Mirror and I actually noticed how much metric was used".

REPLY: The Mirror's circulation has slumped dramatically over the last few years (apart from a brief rise recently when serialising Paul 'I will never betray her secrets' Burrell's diaries).

It used to be well above the 'Daily Mail'; it is now nearly 1/2 million below it, and still falling.

Could the Mirror's alleged preference for metric perchance be related to its steep decline?

Martin: "Paul, you lived in the US for many years. Are you talking US gallons or Imperial gallons. Had you used ltres, this question would of course been redundant. "

I realized somebody would probably ask that question immediately after I posted. In this case it's Imperial gallons. I have to admit that this sort of this does pose a possibility for misinterpretation where trans-Atlantic measurements are concerned.

I don't suppose you'd have been happy with miles per liter, would you? Gotta be liters per 100km!

By the way, has anyone bothered to work out that 56 yd/gal. equates to over 31 gals. per mile!

I bet if you said that quick enough there would be a few people who didn't notice that you said GALLONS PER MILE instead of miles per gallon.

Another pro-EU left leaning paper the (ahem) "Independant" is running an advert for its tabloid version of the paper and all the sizes are done in inches. They estrapolate it out to see how much space an "Independant" reader could save, in miles, on a train versus broadsheet readers.

BTW - who cares how many yds in a mile? I've never mixed the two in an explanation of one length. Fractions, boy, FRACTIONS!

TO be honest though - lets get into the real world. We are "comfortable" with imperial in such a way that we don't even hear the words before we absorb them. eg - on Blue Peter if they say "the main town lies 5 miles from the coast" then no-one (not even Andy) will say "whaasssat? did I just hear miles? That sounded so unusual not to hear it in km!".

The same is true of feet, yards etc. You don't realise how comfortable you accept those measures because you don't stop to "hear" those measures.

When someone says, metre, cm, km etc it tends to stand out like a sore thumb (in a scientific "we're back at school" sort of thing)

"We are "comfortable" with imperial in such a way that we don't even hear the words before we absorb them...no-one (not even Andy) will say "whaasssat? did I just hear miles? That sounded so unusual not to hear it in km!"."

Agreed.

"The same is true of feet, yards etc. You don't realise how comfortable you accept those measures because you don't stop to "hear" those measures."

Not agreed, I notice those measures but then on this board we all do.

"When someone says, metre, cm, km etc it tends to stand out like a sore thumb (in a scientific "we're back at school" sort of thing)"

I have to say once again that I have heard 'normal' people using metric measurements in general parlance on more than a minor number of occasions, as have other members of this board.

Maybe we should all recognise that this does happen?

I did not say that the people of the UK do not use metric *at all* !

I read the Telegraph along with many of my friends. We are 17, 18, 19, 20 years old.

I would just like to say this. If Britian no longer sells petrol by the gallon, then why is there any confusion? The US is the only major country that still sells fuel by the gallon. Even Canada sells their fuel by the litre. So in many respects the only gallon that is in use for measuring fuel would be the US gallon. Would it not?

The UK gallon is still, of course, used. But not for petrol fro mthe pump.

The Imeprial gallon is used unofficially, but it may not be used for any legal or commercial purposes. As an anomoly, the milk, beer and cider (but no other fluid substances) may be sold by the pint in the UK (milk, provided that it is in a returnable bottle).

Re: 56 Yards to the Gallon November 11 2003, 2:22 PM


"We are "comfortable" with imperial in such a way that we don't even hear the words before we absorb them...no-one (not even Andy) will say "whaasssat? did I just hear miles? That sounded so unusual not to hear it in km!"."

Agreed.

"The same is true of feet, yards etc. You don't realise how comfortable you accept those measures because you don't stop to "hear" those measures."

Not agreed, I notice those measures but then on this board we all do.

"When someone says, metre, cm, km etc it tends to stand out like a sore thumb (in a scientific "we're back at school" sort of thing)"

metre:
Of course it would, after all you are habituated to the units and their nomenclature. That's why the Yanks call their measurement system US Customary. Customary is another word for habitual.

Martin,

All the car adverts I've seen show mpg (with the litres thing in brackets).

Looks more official than you propose.

Also I've seen oil being sold in one gallons plastic containers with litres alongside. It was a UK gallon.

Steve, technically they should show litres/100km with mpg in brackets. After 2009-12-31 they should drop the mpg.

Nice use of the word "should", there.

Speaks volumes (in gallons, naturally)

In the US on car stickers, the government labels the fuel economy in only mpg, and I know the study is done in USC. Pretty interesting when the government is supposed to be metric.

The way we measure fuel economy in the UK proves that often its all about familiarity with numbers rather than understanding the units. We use mpg in the UK, but that does not mean many people know what a gallon is. If someone tells you their car does 40 mpg, you don't think of it literally in terms of a gallon of fuel and the number of miles covered. Its just a number that people get used to - the units are irrelevant.

In Britain we use litres and miles, so mpg and l/100km are equally inappropriate. But if the assumption is that we will eventaully use l/100km the only way to get people to use it is drop the mpg. No-one looks at anything in brackets.

Hmmm,

I can visualise a gallon (8 pints)
I can also visualise a mile.

I was driving with my girlfriend the other day and she's not measurement nuts like I am.

Anyway - I filled up with petrol and drove a certain distance.

I clicked the computer to consumption and I asked "How many gallons do you think we've done?"

She replied nought point two.

She was exactly right!

Call it female intuition or something!

In fact I find myself "fractionalising" that display sometimes and working out how many pints the car has swallowed - easy to imagine in terms of pint mugs!

OK, but for the average person who isn't measurement nuts, it is unlikely that they know how many pints in a gallon so they can visualise it - and even if they can, what use is it when you buy petrol in litres, and its priced per litre?

In the US it's not too bad to get from liters to gallons because 1 US quart is almost identical to 1 liter. It's almost the same with Imperial quarts.

1 US qt. = 0.946 3529 L
1 Imp. qt. = 1.136 5225 L

Thus, if you can't visualize the gallon, just multiply your liters by 4 and it will be approximately ok.

I was backpacking this past weekend and the idodine tablets had directions that said 1 tablet for 1 quart/1 liter. Some of the boys in the scout troop where I'm a Scoutmaster had liter containers of water (similar to soda bottles, water frequently comes in liter sizes). The boys had no clue as to what a liter was and how it related to gallons and quarts. I had to explain to them that a liter was not at all related.

As for visualizing gallons. Any American can tell you what a gallon looks like because milk comes in plastic gallon jugs. When you say 'miles per gallon' it's immediately visualizable because droves of people pour their milk out every morning from a gallon jug.

"and even if they can, what use is it when you buy petrol in litres, and its priced per litre?"

This I totally agree with you on.

Obviously I take a different overall opinion (as you can imagine) but what on earth is the point in having litre displays and litre prices when our cars and consumption figures are based upon imperial?

Martin can blame Thatcher for this - but in an admirational way rather than one of blame!

Was it *really* to hide price increases? Seems daft to me.

I agree with Andy's above post. Fuel efficiency is just a number, and to understand it you don't need to be familiar with the two units that are combined, you only need to have a relative sense of where the number stands on the spectrum.

But if the public doesn't actually understand whichever system of measure they use, they are very likely to get ripped off. When the British food industry switched to metric would be a good example of this.

What I am saying is that understanding is not an absolute term, but a relative term. If one car says 20 mpg and another says 25 mpg, you have to be able to compare them to each other (which is not hard), and compare them to the spectrum of all cars available (which is harder). The latter requires knowledge of other cars' specifications. None of this requires knowledge of the size of a mile or a gallon.

Bud I agree with what you said, but what i am saying is that people really ought to have at least some idea of whichever measurements they use.

Bud wrote

<<
What I am saying is that understanding is not an absolute term, but a relative term. If one car says 20 mpg and another says 25 mpg, you have to be able to compare them to each other (which is not hard) ...
>>

Assuming of course that both statements were using the same gallon.

Which they would be if you were reading a US or UK publication in the US or UK.

BTW - I've worked out that my mini is less economical (on petrol) than my jag!

And if anyone's at the London to Brighton mini run on Saturday - honk your horn!