Why doesn't the U.S. switch to the metric system?

Saturday 14th June, 05:24 AM JST

Latest 15 of 42 Total Comments Show All

Sarge at 07:53 AM JST - 15th June

"Luckliy, a litre of water will always be 1 kilogram"

Oh, yes, how lucky we are! Tee hee!
Apsara at 08:19 AM JST - 15th June

NZ also managed the switch in 1967, along with changing the currency to dollars and cents from pounds and pence, and somehow everyone managed.

I think the reason is just stubbornness, really, and perhaps a fear of change, like Japan not having daylight saving.
Farmboy at 08:46 AM JST - 15th June

As someone noted, both systems are dealt with in the US, but essentially, the reason the US doesn't switch is because it doesn't have to. It is a large enough market to have things the way they always have been and switching to metric has very little popular support. The saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind.
jackkerouac at 09:23 AM JST - 15th June

The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!
knucklerap at 09:58 AM JST - 15th June

who wants to say "37.84" litre hat or "give him a 2.54 cm and he takes 1.6 kilometers"?
UnagiDon at 10:05 AM JST - 15th June

The terrorists use metric, so there you go.
serindipity at 12:01 PM JST - 15th June

Interestingly enough, after 33 comments nobody has a logical reason. The fear of change seems the most logical to me. Or, let's go one step further and say, they like to be different.
Zen_Builder at 12:09 PM JST - 15th June

Not sure why they haven't changed.

IMO, it would be cheaper to use the more common system rather than running 2 systems one for internal and one for external business.

This is one reason why many countries have switched as it is easier to sell products on the international market vs having to use different system for local and international market.

Just my view.
Starviking at 12:36 PM JST - 15th June

The old imperial system is a pain in the ass if you're a scientist or engineer. Just do what the UK did - keep the old measurements for things that don't involve maths (distances, consumer goods) and use the metric system for everything else.

As for costs - NASA lost one Mars Space Probe, and almost lost a Saturn Space Probe due to errors involving converting Imperial measurements to Metric...
niku at 04:08 PM JST - 15th June

Why are there so many topics about the US here?
Farmboy at 05:45 PM JST - 15th June

Why are there so many topics about the US here?

Hmmmm. I suppose the reason is that if the question had been, "Why don't Burma and Liberia convert to the metric system, there would have been fewer responses.
Madverts at 08:31 PM JST - 15th June

Why do the Brits, Japenese and loads of other places drive on the other side of the road?

People don't like change. Nowt to do with nationality.
WhiteHawk at 05:21 AM JST - 19th June

At this point, it would be about as practical as switching all of our interstates and surface roads over to driving on the left. And as others have noted, we already use both systems for different things.

Now if someone would just tell me why the Brits still use "stone" as a unit of weight measurement, and how much one is in American pounds (.lbs).
Chinese_American_Guy at 02:58 PM JST - 19th June

When was the last time a football player ran down the 30 meter line? It's just not cool in some context, and strange a reason as it may be, it makes the US special. That's why the metric system never took hold. Maybe in a future multipolar world, the US may rethink this, but I doubt it.
NagoyaOya at 01:34 PM JST - 20th June

On the Teaching English in Japan website (teij.net), there is a metric conversion tool and it gets somewhere in the region of 25,000 visitors a day (most, needless to say, from the U.S.). And it's just one of several online metric conversion tools (and not the most popular by 1.6km...uh, a mile, or...a long shot). So there's a lot of people out there who need to cross the metric divide every day. Can't be very productive.