It’s ironic, but the law that states cyclists shouldn’t ride on pavements is the same law that could be used to prevent motorists from parking on pavements. Which is the greater social ill? If you believe vitriolic letters in local […]
Continue ReadingIn last week’s Sunday Times, the newspaper’s ‘motormouth’ correspondent Mike Rutherford wrote: “Parking is now officially, in my book at least, one of the undisputed rip-offs of the decade.” He claims he will no longer pay for “heinously expensive spaces” […]
Continue ReadingOops. We’re not quite there yet. But this was the prediction of geologist, Earl Cook, writing in Scientific American in 1971. He was ahead of his time in other ways, too. Cook (1920-1983) was an expert on resource depletion and […]
Continue ReadingGiven society’s addiction to cars it’s highly appropriate that the world’s first filling station was a drugstore. And it’s still standing. Stadt-Apotheke – or Town Pharmacy – in Wiesloch, south of Heidelberg, Germany, was where Bertha Benz first refuelled her […]
Continue ReadingThe US opened the first ‘controlled-access highway’ in 1908 (it was a bike path by 1938); Italy opened the first autostrada in 1924; Nazi Germany built the first autobahn in 1932. Motorways came late to Britain. The first motorway to […]
Continue ReadingAutomobile magazine, in October 1908, lauded the Long Island Motor Parkway as “the world’s first road designed and built for daily use of the automobile.” By 1938, a section of the two lane highway for exclusive use of “pleasure automobiles” […]
Continue ReadingThe slow spread of motorcars after the 1896 London to Brighton Emanicipation Run (an event organised by a bicycle builder) wasn’t universally welcomed. Automobilists were “motor fiends”, opined the satirical magazine Punch in 1907, and the motorcar was “an ingenious […]
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In three short paragraphs this hitherto unknown Sunday Times reader displays arrogance, ignorance, and historical inaccuracy. But George Knight’s views are mainstream beliefs. Many, if not most, motorists have a similar outlook on what should be on the roads, who […]
Continue ReadingMany modern motorists glibly profess their hatred for cyclists. The automobilists of the early 1900s had no such issues with cyclists. This was because many were cyclists too, or had been cyclists before taking up motoring. The first motorcar racers, […]
Continue ReadingAt just after 11pm on March 6th 1896 the first motorcar on the streets of Detroit was piloted to a stop on Woodward Avenue. This car was driven by its builder, 28-year old mechanical engineer Charles Brady King. King’s horseless […]
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