RTA releases new budget Defensive Driving videos

Because the NSW guvvament thingy is so broke, RTA have launched some
budget training vids.

Instead of using late model cars, fancy graphics and celebrities, in a
fit of (unusual) madness for the RTA the roadcrats instead spent most
of the project budget on filling in potholes and painting lines for
the visuals.

Check out the roads! I'll have me some of that.

 

The only question I have, is was that made in the 60s or 70s?

 

I dunno.. but roads were better and no distractingly annoying road
signage everywhere.

My guess is ..early 70s. Filmed mostly northern beaches area, Ku-ring-
gai Chase National Park (towards West Head) ..hello Skip.

 

1973 as per youtube blurb.

 

1973 also per the copyright notice at the tail of the video (MCMLXXIII),
which leads to the obvious question - why were they referring to the
distance between cars as "only four feet," when Australia was well 'n' truly
metric by then?

 

I think Australia went metric in measurements in 1972 and land is still
advertised by the acre in outer suburban areas, so "well and truly" might be
an overstatement.

Theo

 

Hooley fucking dooley
for just this once, I agree with the young Theo

 

I think Holden and Ford were still building cars with mph only speedos
into the early 70s, and just because someone legislates that metric is
the official measure, that doesn't mean everyone instantly converts
everything overnight. My parents still measure everything in inches and
yards. 4 feet is easy to get a mental grasp of, whereas the metric
equivalent 1.219 metres isn't, unless you don't know any better.

I had trouble riding through the USA last year because a lot of their
road signs were in distances I couldn't get a grasp on. For some
reason, in just about all states I rode through, signs often referred to
distances in what I considered to be stupidly small units, although I
guess if you grew up knowing those distances you'd have no problems.
Everything seemed to be measured in feet, so there'd be a sign saying
"rest area in 1500 ft". Rounding it to "1/3 mile" would have made more
sense to me. The most puzzling sign I saw was indicating a turnoff in
"1590 feet". Why they didn't just move the sign 10ft further back I
will never know.

Nev..

 

Most people would convert 4 feet to 1200 mm as a near enough approximation.
If your buying timber product sheeting, such as ply or MDF you buy 1200 x
2400 sheets. What you actually get is a 4' x 8' sheet. This is great if you
only measure in metric as you can cut your 1200 sheet into 4 x 300 mm
strips, despite losing 3mm for each saw cut.

A road sign in Perth got quite famous for a while after they converted it to
metric. It was before the corner of Wanneroo and Nangara roads and used to
say Nangara Rd - 200 yards. After Metrification it said 183 metres. It's
wonderful how you can change an approximation to exactitude with the simple
use of a calculator.

Theo

 

Officially the changeover took from 1970 to 1988 (real estate was the
last industry to convert).

By 1973, teaching metric commenced in secondary schools.

I read it on wiki so it must be true: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_Australia

Alternatively, 1 metre is easy to get a mental grasp of, whereas the
imperial equivalent 3.2808 ft isn't.

Probably because some idiot would launch a lawsuit because they turned
10 feet too soon or too late and crashed.

 

Australian currency change to metric in 1966. Happy birthday $ & ó.

3.2808 is an imperial measurement??. I'm sure you meant to say
something like 3ft, 3 & 3/8ths of an inch... or there abouts

Nev¼½

 

Nah, it is three foot 95 mm.

 

The value and the unit of measure are separate entities.

Did you miss that lesson or were you fetching teacher an apple at the
time (you lil front row, 4 foot nothing, buck-toothed charmer
Nev)

 

Bzzzzt!

Plumbers are still using BSP (British Standard Pipe)



N/

 

Colloquially, good on 'em.. I'm still using feet sometimes too

Metrication doesn't require actually changing the shapes, design/
dimensions of newly manufactured objects.

There's much science and engineering gone into devising appropriately
threaded/pitched/waisted/walled bits of plumbing and fasteners.

Now where's my King Dick spanner? It rounds off boltheads just as
neatly as any metric equivalent.

 

All 3 of my HQ holdens had dual mph/kph speedos, as did my GT750
Kawasaki (and that was 1984!).

About the only difference was that the GT750 had the mph as the smaller
figures and the HQ's had kph as the smaller figures.


G-S

 

Quite understandable for a bike which was probably sent to markets all
around the world.
My 1970 LC Torana was MPH only, while I'm almost certain my father's '74
HQ was KPH only. I imagine that there was probably an overlap period in
between, as Australia, and the two largest export markets for vehicles
produced here, NZ and ZA were both in the process of metrification at
around the same time.

Nev..

 

Especially, every time you need to walk anywhere, I'll bet

Cheers

 

A friend bought a speedo for his CBR600rr 07 model from the states. It read in
mph but was easily converted to kph by pushing a few buttons.

Fraser