"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 20:35:44 on
Mon, 2 Aug 2010, Neil Williams remarked:
It avoids people having to publish two addresses - one for postal
purposes and a second so that you can find where they are.

Don't know about you, but these days I find out where someone is by
typing their postcode into Google Maps or my sat-nav.

Ad you think that would still work if we had a two-tier (continental
style) address model in the UK?
--
Roland Perry

It certainly works with an address where I used to live in New York - you
can try it out for yourself because I've given the address below. The Royal
Mail seem to be trying to move this way, although they're not doing a very
good job of educating the Great British Public.

I would be strongly in favour of a system that is more highly mechanised
(and much cheaper) such as the USA has. All US addresses follow the format

Street address
City, StateZip

The Street address contains the building name or number, the street name
and an optional apartment/room number, in that order.

So my address was

377 Rector Place Apt #5A
NEW YORK, NY10280-1534

If you don't follow the above format your mail probably won't be delivered
at all or, at the very best, takes a long time to reach its destination.

The first five digits of the zip code identify the local mail delivery
office, the next four digits (which are optional) identify a group of around
15 delivery points. Google maps doesn't handle the extended zip code, but it
gets near enough.

--
DAS