Does the UK use miles

Answer 1

Yes. Although the UK officially began a changeover to metric in 1965, it did not manage the same smooth changeover as happened in places like Australia, Canada and Ireland. While construction, trade and public administration mostly takes place in metric measures in the UK, miles are still used daily.

In particular, the road network is still publicly signposted using miles for distance and miles per hour for speed restrictions. Miles are also used on most of the railway network as of 2013. Accordingly, it is conventional for people to refer to land distances in miles rather than kilometres.

Kilometres are not that unusual or unfamiliar, however. Most cars also display speeds in km/h as well as miles per hour and the Ordnance Survey, which is Britain's official mapping agency, has been using kilometre grids on its maps since the 1950s. It's also quite common to see, for example, a "10k race" being held or for runners to train in metres and kilometres.

Technical documents and government reports also often use kilometres for distance, or square kilometres for area. Motorways in England also have location data signs for emergency services and construction traffic in km, although these are little-known to the public. Additionally, newly-built railways and those converted to the newest form of signalling use km and km/h.

However, despite this, there is no plan for British road signage to convert to miles at the moment.