Saturday, Nov 06, 2004 at 15:08
Wolfie......
Quote..."Just imagine........... poor bloody Pythagorus would be turning in his grave.......... in 2 degree increments!! "......
Sorry mate.....wrong, wrong, wrong....... He would actually be turning in his grave in 1% increments......Please, get this right will ya......it's a matter of life and death of course.
Now back to percentages when measuring gradients..........
One of my other interests/hobbies is trains, both model and full size. Now our railway mates here in Oz refer to line gradients as "one in XXX". EG: a
hill which ascends @ 1 foot every 66 feet is known as a "1 in 66". This was very common (and probably still is) and gave the train crew a really good idea of what sort of fire they had to put on the ol' girl to get over that sucker.
Meanwhile, our gawd-damn Yanky mates, have always referred to their gradients (of course the yanks have a better class of gradient than ours here "down-under"...haha) as percentages. Hence for a 1 in 66 gradient as we know it, the yanks would
sign-post that for the train crew as 1.3% (I think...LOLOL). I reckon it would have been a pre-requisite for a yank to have a degree in mathematics (or "math" as they call it!!!.....note no "s") to get a job as a train driver.
If the
signage was up to me, I would simply put a
sign at the top of a steep
hill saying things like:
"Slow Down Dopey, there's a bit a downward
hill in front of ya". (for a moderate
hill).
"You might wanna hit 2nd gear bloke" (for a slighty steeper decline)
"Both feet on the middle pedal fella.....right NOW" for a pretty bad
hill
and finally.....
"If you're doing more than 25kph at this stage, take your hands off the wheel, bend over and kiss yer arze goodbye" for the mother of all drop offs....
Works for me....
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