It's upon us. The great metric changeover, an event our wonderful Minister for Transport has called "one of the most important changes in Irish motoring history", takes place at midnight tonight writes Kilian Doyle.
(Republicans must be delighted - they'll finally be throwing off the last vestiges of imperialism. It's a significant milestone along their road to a Metric Marxist Utopia - God, those are dreadful puns. Really dreadful. Ed. )
So, are you all ready? Of course you are. It's blindingly simple. What's the big deal? Why we needed a €2.5 million information campaign is beyond me.
I, along with several hundred other people, attended the campaign's great big expensive launch in the opulent surrounds of the state room in one of Dublin's top hotels, all flashy video screens, schmoozing and dolled-up PR girls. (What did you expect - this is Martin Cullen's baby after all).
Hype, hype, hype. You'd think we, the motoring public, were being asked to learn overnight how to fly fighter jets. Sometimes the patronising attitude of the powers-that-be to the general populace infuriates me to the point of armed revolution.
There's been lots of stinkkickingupping about the length of the public awareness campaign, how two weeks isn't long enough for motorists to get used to thinking in metric. But have we not all been converting miles to kilometres for years - most road signs made the switch many moons ago?
Remember all the kerfuffle over the euro changeover, how we were treated like cretins incapable of simple mathematical calculations? We Irish, ever a canny race, took to it quicker than anywhere else in the EU. What makes them think this will be any different?
A simple rule of thumb - assuming you actually care whether or not you're speeding - is to take the zero off the figure on the new km/h sign and then multiply by six. This will give you a pretty accurate conversion to the speed limit in miles. If you can't work this out, you have to question your suitability to drive.
The type of cranks who write whinging letters to newspapers are already warning of increased accidents because of the difficulties reading their speedometers. Come on people, get over it. If you're unable to read the little numbers instead of the big ones, you've no business behind the wheel of a car, do you? Be honest now.
These are probably the same people who have taken the little conversion sticker that came in the post and stuck it to their windscreen. Those stickers are monumentally pointless. They come with a warning not to consult them while actually driving, but to park safely first. So you have to come to a halt to see if you are speeding. Smart, isn't it?
Of course, there are those who'll take advantage of the changeover. I wonder how many Impreza drivers will use the fact the recent storms have ripped the plastic sheets covering many of the new signs, explaining to gardaí that they were doing 120 mph because the sign said they could?
I have only one other major concern. Local authorities around the country are being given the power to set their own speed limits for the first time.
Not one of the councils is going to raise speed limits and leave themselves open to being blamed for accidents. But they will have no problem lowering them. That, to me, is opening up a whole snakepit of potential abuse.
Say, just for fun, you are a developer building a new estate in a country town. The only problem is that your site is alongside a dual carriageway. A 30km/h limit along said road will allow you to charge €50,000 more for each house because its in a "child-friendly" zone. What do you do? Call your local councillor.
Stationers all around the country will be seeing their sales of brown envelopes shooting up, you mark my words. Cynical, me?