The Republic of Ireland should revert to displaying distances and speeds on road signs in miles and miles per hour in the interests of safety, it has been suggested. Chairman of the Republic's National Safety Council Gay Byrne has heard calls from SDLP assembly members that road signs on both sides of the border between the UK and the Republic of Ireland be harmonised.

Follow up:

"An integrated approach to road signage and marking could help many people and tourists in particular who cross the border regularly. At the moment motorists crossing the border get one set of signs with speed limits measured in kilometres per hour and another in miles per hour."
Margaret Ritchie MLA (South Down), SDLP Regional Development Spokesman

Ms Ritchie is right - ever since the Republic went metric, tourists have faced the horrendously confusing ordeal of having road signs in miles in Northern Ireland, but in kilometres in most places on the other side of the border. The only sane response is for Mr Byrne to immediately recommend that the Republic's equivalent of the Roads Service begin replacing all metric road signs with imperial ones.

It's certainly good to see this sort of suggestion being considered. After all, the SDLP could have abused a serious issue like this as purile justification for integrating Northern Ireland with the Republic the way Sinn Fein regularly do; they could have just mentioned the words "all-Ireland" and "North-South" a few times (maybe throwing in a couple of meaningless buzzwords like 'connectivity' and 'cohesion') - but thankfully they're too mature for that.