For example, can I say this if my book is written in US English (in non-dialog):
The car was going at least 140 kilometers per hour!
Or should I convert them to miles or what have you?
It's for a fiction novel that takes place in Italy. However, I'm using it simply just to convey to the reader "the car was going super fast" in a fancier way.
I'm self-publishing the book for the US/International market.
Answer
If you're writing for a U.S. audience, then the thing you have to realize is that car speeds are pretty much always given in miles per hour (mph). If your goal is to communicate a car speed to a U.S. reader, then you need to give the speed in mph.
Listing the speed in km/h says something in addition to (and possibly instead of) communicating the speed of a car.
This could be a good idea if you know what you're trying to say by doing so, and wish to convey that effectively. If you don't — e.g. you're writing km/h simply out of habit — the effect you achieve will most likely be negative.
An example of effective use is if you want the reader to feel like they're in a foreign land; giving speeds in metric units could be one of the dozen different tools you're using to help create and maintain that feeling.
This would, however, give you an added challenge if numbers are meant to be meaningful (e.g. to provoke the reaction "wow that's fast!"); since the reader's experience doesn't give them the needed frame of reference, your writing will need to provide it for them. Or you could give other cues so that they can understand the meaning even if the numbers don't do it for them.
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