The end of an era - the beginning of self-driving cars in Phoenix, Arizona


The old-timers must have hated self-driving cars in Phoenix, which were called "auto-mobiles" (auto meaning self). And whatever they imagined, it couldn't be as terrible as what actually happened in the next few decades.

Before the invention of "auto-mobiles", there was a horse in front of a vehicle, keeping an eye on things. After that, the horse was gone, and whatever "horse sense" had been there before vanished. And if the old-timers could have seen what happened, all they would have said is "I told you so".

Within decades the number of people killed and maimed in "horseless carriages" had risen dramatically. Efforts were made to stem this, but eventually, in the 20th Century, Phoenix had gotten used to the carnage. And it was true all over the country, where deaths were just listed as part of "the toll".

In the 1960s, nylon belts were introduced to try to stem the loss of human life, and not long after that cars were equipped with safety glass, and even inflating "air bags" to reduce the amount of injury to people. And somehow people had come to accept that the simple process of being on the road meant a fairly high chance of death, or terrible injury. Automobiles were so dangerous that even a moment's hesitation, looking away from the road for just a few seconds, to look at a cell phone, could spell disaster, and death. And the human predication to consuming alcoholic beverages made it even deadlier.

As the 21st Century unfolds, the era of "self-driving cars" has begun again. But this time computers are doing the driving, not humans. And old-timers are worried again. But history has shown that horse sense isn't something that people have. And hopefully the destruction will come to an end.

Image at the top of this post: Horseless carriages (on the left) in 1904, 1st Avenue and Washington, Phoenix, Arizona.
If you liked this article, and would like to see more, please consider becoming a patron of History Adventuring on Patreon. If you're already a patron, thank you! You make this happen!

 Click here to become a Patron!
History adventuring posts are shared there daily. The basic tier is a dollar a month, and the PhD tier, which includes "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, videos, and super high-definition photos, is five dollars a month, and is discounted for seniors, veterans, and students.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more