How should the United States undergo metrification?

Since conversion is so simple, there are really only a few reasons why I can see it being convenient, like in areas of car repair, where sometimes you need a 3/8" wrench and sometimes you need a 40 mm wrench (or whatever would be a valid size), even sometimes within the same car.

When you think about it in terms of cooking, I mean, my measuring cup has metric on one side and US/imperial on the other. So I can get a recipe from anywhere, it doesn't really matter.

The most compelling reason why no one will probably ever change in the future is that it will break so many computer systems. I mean, people panicked with regards to Y2K, but this is much, much more complicated to program.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

So you want to start with the highway system?

OK. So what happens when the speed limit sign says 88 and the car I'm driving says I'm going 88 and the cop still pulls me (and everyone else who doesn't know how to do KPH to MPH very quickly in our heads) over and detains me for criminal speeding?

If I knew the conversion, sure, but how many people do you drive by every day that you're glad aren't doing mathematical conversions while they are driving next to or behind you?

What about the signs? Do you want to move the signs, or simply replace them? Because if you don't move them, then you have signs that say, "Next exit 1.609344 km".

I don't have a number, but I'm guessing currently at the cost to replace or redo every single sign on the highway system. It isn't pretty.

What do you do with mile markers? Some maps rely heavily on mile markers: "Make the first left after mile marker 44." Do those stay? Do we care if businesses on those routes have to redo all their paperwork? What cost is it to them and is the government willing to help them? What about all the old travel guides, now no one can find these businesses and they go out of business.

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Originally Posted by Arainach

What car doesn't have KPH on the scale as well? Every one I've ever driven has - Chevys, Toyotas, Oldsmobiles, Saturns - everything has had KPH right there on the dashboard.

Huh, I guess I forgot about that.

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Also, saying "it's always been done this way and if we change business x will go out of business" is never a good reason to do something. The world changes. Businesses that can't adapt fail. It's that simple.

Also, replacing all the signs on the highway may be a reasonable cost (a billion max - pennies for the feds) but it's a one-time cost.

Yeah, but the problem is that businesses have come to rely on the government providing them a certain status quo. It's the same reason why municipalities almost never will change a street name.

I suppose it's true that saying, "ALWAYS STATUS QUO" is bad, but no one has provided a compelling reason why the benefits outweigh the negatives. Or even that there are benefits. I mean, what benefit does anyone who is located on or drives Interstate XX gain if we change the entire thing from imperial units to metric?

I bet you're low on your replacement costs. I mean, for example, one highway, I-10, just the Arizona stretch, is about 380 miles. That's 380 mile markers (all that have to be moved), 1 for every exit (these would change because exits are numbered by mile marker) throughout the entire length, I'd guess maybe 100?, probably at least an extra 2 (and usually more) signs every quarter mile (which would have to be moved because it's awkward to say 0.42336 km) through metropolitan Tucson and Phoenix (which probably totals about 70-80 miles of road)...and more that I'm not thinking of. I'd guess maybe...1000-1500 signs? And I'm thinking the costs of new signs as well as the labor to replace them probably runs, I dunno, $100 per? I think this is short by a factor of 10.

And most roads in the US aren't as well travelled as I-10. Every single highway would have to be changed. And I doubt the federal government would be allowed to tell the states that all their intrastate roads have to be changed, so we'd have major highways in metric and all the roadways within a single city be imperial, since there is no way that citizens are going to vote to raise local taxes just to change from the system they know to the system they don't.

Parts of I-19 (Tucson to Nogales, Arizona, on the Mexico border) are in metric, which is totally wacky. One minute you're driving 55 MPH and then next you're supposed to 90 KPH, and you're 20,000 m away from where you're going and you think to yourself "fuck I'm so far away" but then you're there in a couple minutes.

Essentially, the United States cannot and will never complete the switch that is proposed here.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.