Scouser Loc: British Columbia

Have you ever wondered why you cannot jam a 1/2" socket onto a 13mm AF nut, or why a 9/16" open-jawed spanner rounds off the corners of a 14mm AF nut? When you get up around 1-3/16" AF, you may get away with a 30mm spanner, but there really are no equivalent sizes that can be used safely, no matter what some smart-ass at work tells you! Break open your piggy bank and invest in another set of spanners, your knuckles will thank you for it.
(I know, 5/16" and 8mm are very close, but if you don't want to damage your spanners and/or your nuts, use the right sized tools!)

Flabbio

Or you could say it is 12.192 meters long.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

"Going metric" in the US was the big push/dream in the beginning of the 70's. Industry, everything.

Didn't happen, obviously. The U.S. is too self-important to join the rest of the world, it would be a long, slow, HUGE change, and it would cost HUGE amounts of money.

Doomed idea.

StanMac Loc: Tennessee

Aside from the influence of special interests, America’s obsession with its so-called “exceptionalism” drives the thinking that if it wasn’t invented here it ain’t good enough, or it won’t work here.

Stan

CaptainBobBrown

This one gets a lot of heat and a little light. But we have to recognize that all international standards of measure are in metric or quantum constants, e.g. Plank Constant. Even time is defined in terms of the number of atomic transitions of the cesium 133 atom at a particular frequency and every other length measure is defined in terms of that. There aren't any international standards for the "english" system anymore. There was a lot of whining among teachers trying to teach metric units to school kids because they felt they had to keep relating metric units to the english units they were familiar with...but the kids were adaptable and could easily grock that everything was in base 10.

shangyrhee Loc: Nashville TN to Sacramento CA

Frayud Loc: Bethesda,MD

In the 70's we tried metric and it stuck to this day only for liquor and wine. The Government should have mandated it for milk and gasoline and after the initial outcry, we would have metric to this day.

Unrelated thought: after America is Great Again will colored toilet paper return to the marketplace?

agillot

NO , then you would have to get different everything to use your metric sockets +++ .what about torx ?? and also the old british . the metric system is a lot easier to use when measuring precise stuff . the only reason we did not switch is the cost of retooling .

ollie Loc: Ogdensburg, NY

are you aware that in 1876 and again in 1976 the US passed laws making the metric system the official measurement system in the US.

agillot

don t that 1/10 of a cent drive you mad , it should be illegal , you cannot give change back on 1/10 of a cent .just like $ 9.99 , rounded up to 10.00 .

InfiniteISO Loc: The Carolinas, USA

Measurements in the US auto industry were schizophrenic in the 1980s. Recently, while replacing the water pump in my decrepit 1989 Dodge D150 (335,000 miles and counting) I found one badly corroded bolt that I wanted to replace. It had a 15mm head and I assumed that it had a metric pitched thread as well. No, it was SAE! Now I have one odd-ball bolt with an SAE head. If my truck had any paint left on it, it might bother me, LOL.

johnnievegas

at 77 years old I am comfortable with what we have. If we have to change let's go whole hog. Convert everything to metric. Hours, minutes, seconds, make clocks digital, days and years since the death of Christ, distance to the moon, sun, Alpha Centauri, pounds, ounces, psi, blood pressure; everything we have gotten used to. I like using mm rather than inches to describe the length of my member. Only positive result I can think of.

home brewer Loc: Fort Wayne, Indiana

We love buying food in Europe using the metric units.
I also like that I can drive at 140 KPH and my wife does not know how fast we are going.

In the late 60's and early 70s I studied Mechanical Engineering and was taught using the English units. I also used a slide rule. Slugs and some of the other stuff was confusing.

I first worked as an truck engine test engineer using the US units of measure, later as an gas and diesel engine design engineer, and then in special equipment design. During theat time the company came out with a new heavy duty truck that started out using metric units and fasteners. We were told by many customers that if the truck used metric fasteners they would not by the truck. Not only did they change to SAE fasteners they also changed all the dimentions from metric to english.

Then I worked at aerospace company where some of the items were SAE but much of the analyis was done using the metic system. It took me a while to learn. Most of my reference books were in the english system so I had to convert to metric.

The last aerospace company that worked at designed weather sensors and everything was metric.

When thinking about engines I still think in ft-lb and HP and not newton-meter and kilowatt.
I read the Hubble telescope had issues due to converting. Also there may have been an issue with a Mars space craft.

There is no excuss since there is a nice program called convert that will do a fantastic job converting

robertperry Loc: Sacramento, Ca.

I'm a retired mechanic. $20-25,000 in tools, standard and metric. Never gave it a thought, but you are right, why is 1/4, 3/8, 1/2" drive still the norm?
Also, remember several years ago, Nasa and Europe worked together to send a probe to Mars? It slammed into the planet because of standard/metric differences.

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

The very odd thing about this metric/imperial thing and how people don't like changing over to metric is that the most important thing of the lot is currency (since you all claim that the main thing stopping the conversion is cost). And yet your currency is metric and always has been. Did you feel that you should stop there ?
The cost of tooling is a fallacious argument. One of the biggest problems in the US car industry is the old machinery now still being used. Upgrade to metric, replace the old machinery and move into modern times. I bet your car industry will improve as the new machinery will cause your engineers to rethink all their old ideas re style and manufacturing techniques. Look how Japan benefited from a good war but the US didn't.
I bet that if I was an overseas machinery buyer I would much prefer to buy something from Europe or Asia and get modern metric than from the US and get something that nobody else in the world can fix. Take note Trump !
And how on earth you managed to corrupt your Imperial measurements and come up with smaller gallons I don't know. Thus creating two standards for gallons etc. Fortunately, I guess, you didn't corrupt length.
Following an American recipe is a nightmare. Maybe this is what it all boils down to - you don't/won't convert because it might result in changes to your donut recipes and therefore you might all starve ?

Embrace change and down the track America might even become great again.

I have to admit I am pushing it a bit here but I have spent most of my life having to deal with this plethora of stupid US standards. It has cost me a lot of time and mistakes in the past with conversions. And it is even costing you guys since there seem to have been a lot of grumbling about having to buy a second socket set.