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"Jeff Strickland" <crwlr@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:2vydnXFi370W0jzYnZ2dnUVZ_r2onZ2d@ez2.net...[color=blue]
>
> "Nicholas Bourne" <nbourne@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
> news:45a0bc0e@dnews.tpgi.com.au...[color=green][color=darkred]
>>>
>>> I do not agree. The markers should be within a few meters of where they
>>> say they are. My disagreement ias solely your assertion of the rate of
>>> error that the highway department will tolerate. I think that the error
>>> in placing a mile marker is within a few meters, not a hundred meters. A
>>> highway marker will be omitted before it will be placed in the wrong
>>> location.[/color]
>>
>>
>> In the city they maybe but out in the country where I live you sometimes
>> can't be that accurate. Our roads go over very changeable soil types. In
>> the black soil plains the main highway has more waves in it than a
>> rollercoaster. Personally I don't trust them to perfectly accurate with
>> the distance markers over our distances. I think 200Km +- 100m is fine.
>> when the raod is dead straight and you don't see another car for the
>> whole distance I don't really care.
>>[/color]
>
> I don't live in the city either. I do live in California, and your mileage
> may vary, but they will not plant a mile marker before they plant one in
> the wrong place.
>
> The purpose of a mile marker isn't for you to calibrate your odometer or
> speedometer (but they are useful for that), they are for emergency crews
> and highway maintenance crews. When you are on the highway and observe a
> crash, you can tell the emergency operator that you are east of mile
> marker 27.5, and they have a better idea of where to send the response
> crew. Cellphones these days have a GPS-like circuit built in that helps
> the emergency operator find you as you are making the call, so your
> observance of mile markers isn't all that important, but that is why the
> markers are there.
>
> If there is a mile marker planted on the side of the road, you can take it
> to the bank that it is precisely where it says it is, within a few meters.
>[/color]
Your mile markers are used for different things. Ours are only used to tell
you the distance to the next town along the road and are usually every 20 to
30 kilometers so if it's out by 200m it doesn't really matter. In the
country at best you can only give a rough area where you are anyway and
thats usually enough.

By the way (I'm not being picky) our mobiles dont cover much for real
emergancy use. My state along covers some 720,000 square miles (I think it's
about 10% bigger than Texas with about a fifth the population) and less than
10% is covered by mobile reception.