The metric system on the road

Converting kilometers to miles: How to drive and do math at the same time

Gas in Italy: More than $7 per gallon. Even more disturbing: that weird six-legged, fire-breathing, backwards-headed devil dog that is Agip's mascot.There are a few metric conversions that will help you make sense of driving in Italy.

If you can convert kilometers to miles in your head, figure how many liters in a gallon, and convert euros to dollars, you'll realize just exactly how far you need to drive...and how insanely expensive it is going to be to get there.

I'm not kidding. Check out the photograph of an Italian gas station sign on the left. Yeah, that was in 2009, and worked out to $7.21 per gallon. As I write this—in spring 2015—the cost of oil has plummetted (as has the value of the Euro against the U.S. dollar), yet still, at a national average of €1.65 per liter for regular, it adds up to nearly $7 per gallon.

You say kiLOMeter, I say KILometer

This one is fairly easy. A kilometer (km) is equal to 0.62 miles, and a mile is 1.61 km.

OK so it's not THAT easy. Still, doing a rough calc in your head isn't that hard. For kilometers to miles, just break it into two bits: 50% plus 10% (which totals 60%, or 0.60), then round up a smidge for that extra 2% (the 0.02).

Km Miles 1km 0.62mi 2km 1.24mi 3km 1.86mi 4km 2.46mi 5km 3.11mi 6km 3.37mi 7km 4.35mi 8km 4.97mi 9km 5.59mi 10km 6.21mi 50km 31.07mi 100km 62.14mi Miles Km 1mi 1.61km 2mi 3.22km 3mi 4.83km 4mi 6.44km 5mi 8.05km 6mi 9.66km 7mi 11.27km 8mi 12.88km 9mi 14.48km 10mi 16.09km 50mi 80.47km 100mi 160.9km

That sounds more complicated than it is: The road signs says Siena is 80 km away. OK, so to get 50% you just cut that in half, which is 40. Tuck that away in a crevice of your cerebellum for a moment.

Now take 10% of the original 80—which is 8—then add that to the 40 and you get 48. Round up "a smidge" to cover that extra 2% and you get 50. That means 80 km is roughly 50 miles (actually, it's 49.6, so close enough). Here, I'll make it easy for you with the table up to the right.

Frankly, you'll rarely ever need to convert the other way, unless you want to say to someone in Europe something along the lines of "I live 20 miles outside of Boston," only put it in kilometers terms so he understands where your suburb is. No biggie. Ten miles is about 16 kilometers, so tell him you live 32 km from Boston. (This is assuming, of course, he has more than a vague sense of where Boston is in the first place.) That cheat sheet is also above to the right.

The yardstick by which meters are measured

Thank heavens for the yardstick. You can point with it, you can rap people in the knuckles with it, you can even measure stuff with it, so long as the stuff in question is less than three feet long.

And it's also about one meter long, so just picture a yardstick and you know what a meter looks like. Well, roughly.

Actually, 1 meter is 3.3 feet—a bit longer than a yard. So 10 meters is equal to 33 feet, or 11 yards, which is enough for a first down (only they play soccer in Italy, so that little joke wouldn't work). 100 meters is 330 feet (or 110 yards), 1,000 meters is 3,300 feet (or 1,100 yards). One thousand meters is also 1 kilometer, which is 0.62 miles; see above.

I point all of this out since road signs in Italy will often present distance information in terms of meters, as in a sign for a sight, rest area, or town turn-off that is "2500m" ahead. (Why they use 2,500 meters rather than 2.5km is beyond me. I guess, since meters are smaller, it somehow look closer that way.)

Gas is expensive, whether by the liter or by the gallon

Gal Liter 1gal 3.79L 2gal 7.57L 3gal 11.53L 4gal 15.14L 5gal 18.93L 6gal 22.71L 7gal 26.50L 8gal 30.28L 9gal 34.16L 10gal 37.94L 50gal 189.7L 100gal 379.4L Liter Gal 1L 0.26gal 2L 0.53gal 3L 0.79gal 4L 1.06gal 5L 1.32gal 6L 1.58gal 7L 1.85gal 8L 2.11gal 9L 2.38gal 10L 2.64gal 50L 13.2gal 100L 26.4gal

OK, quick and easy way to remember how much is in a liter: a liter is roughly the same size as a quart. Technically a bit more, since there are around 3.8 liters in 1 gallon.

I like to keep the math easy, and whenever I see gas prices by the liter just multiple by four to figure the per-gallon price.

I then take a few deep breaths to calm my nerves about the travel budget.

Then I remember that that amount is in euros, not dollars, and get all panicky again.

Perhaps it's best just not to do the math after all. (This, by the way, is the main reason Italians drive those tiny Matchbox cars around. They may look puny and pathetic, but they get great gas mileage—and when gas costs $7–$9 per gallon, you want good mpg.)

Still, when stopping for benzina (gas), you'll want to go ahead and get a full tank, so say "al pieno, per favore." And remember: if it's diesel, specify "gasolio."

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