"Richard" wrote in message
news
One thing about ISO sizes bewilders me: why do they specify the height
of
the tyre (OD - ID) as a percentage of the width? Seems an odd way to do
it.
Surely the three measurements that need to be specified explicitly a
inside diameter (ie diameter of wheel and of bead), outside diameter (ie
of
tread) and width. And preferably specify all three in the same bloody
units - either all in mm for Europe (and *maybe* UK) or else all in
inches
(for US) - not some half-arsed mixture of the two.

Imperial complication 1 Metric simplicity 0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelin_TRX

When have the French ever done things like the rest of the world? SECAM
television, non-self-cancelling indicators (Citroen), single-spoke steering
wheel, rubber pad for footbrake "pedal" (Citroen again!), "hockey-stick"
dashboard-mounted gear lever (Renault and Citroen).

There is a lot to be said for the world devising a common standard for
things like wheels and tyres, to reduce the variety of sizes that need to be
stocked.

And don't get me started on the pillock who invented the space-saving spare
wheel. If I was "king" I'd make it mandatory that every car had to be
designed to accommodate a spare wheel which was fully-interchangable with
the running wheels, with no speed or distance restrictions, to allow you to
take a flat tyre to the garage when *you* want, rather than being stranded
overnight because you are about to start a long journey (or are even
half-way through it) and you get a puncture late at night or on a Sunday.
And wheelbraces should be cranked, to make it easy to hold the opposite end
with your hand as you apply pressure with your foot on a wheelnut that
refuses to budge; the modern L-shaped ones pull off the wheelnut. And on my
old Peugeot, the long bolt that released the spare wheel from its cage under
the boot had a crude semi-circular notch nut in it, into which you put the
flattened end of the wheelbrace as a crude screwdriver. What a stupid
design - if the bolt jams, you can't apply enough force before the
"screwdriver" jumps out of the notch. How difficult would it have been for
them to put a hexagonal head on the bolt of the same size as the wheelnuts?
That would have been a proper solution.

The one rule about innovating and being different in the hope that people
will adopt your standard is that your non-standard solution must be *better*
than what's already there, not worse :-)