At the end of the 19th century, the world’s major cities had a problem. The streets were flooded with manure, the unintended consequence of dependence on horses as the major form of transport. In this sea of filth, the infant car industry smelled an opportunity. The Horseless Age, a US car magazine, claimed in 1896 that, with the spread of motorcars, “streets will be cleaner, jams and blockades less likely to occur, and accidents less frequent, for the horse is not so manageable as a mechanical vehicle”. The streets did eventually become cleaner, but not safer. Cars brought huge benefits to society, but also huge challenges. By the end of the 20th century, cars and motorbikes were implicated in more than a million deaths a year around the world, as well as contributing to pollution and suburban sprawl.
This story is often told to show that the inevitable march of innovation brings both solutions and problems. However, there was nothing inevitable about US cities becoming dominated by cars. As the historian Peter Norton describes in his book Fighting Traffic, it was a direct result of lobbying by the US car industry. It campaigned for the removal of public transport, the banning of jaywalking and the redesign of streets. The advent of the car in the US is a useful cautionary tale as we consider the introduction of self-driving cars into our lives – especially in the UK.
