In 1891, engineer James Lambert was driving one of his inventions, an early gasoline-powered buggy, when he ran into a little trouble. The buggy, also carrying passenger James Swoveland, hit a tree root sticking out of the ground. Lambert lost control and the vehicle swerved and crashed into a hitching post. Both men suffered minor injuries.
The first recorded pedestrian fatalities by car came a few years later. In 1896, Bridget Driscoll stepped off of a London curb and was struck and killed by a gas-powered Anglo-French model car driven by Arthur Edsall. While the car had a top speed of four miles per hour, neither Edsall nor Driscoll—who witnesses described as “bewildered” by the sight of the vehicle and frozen in place—were able to avoid the collision. Edsall was arrested, but the death was ruled an accident and he was not prosecuted. The coroner who examined Driscoll’s body is famously quoted as saying that he hoped “such a thing would never happen again.” (That same year, a bicyclist was killed by an automobile in New York City.)
The first pedestrian death in the U.S. occurred on September 13, 1899 (not a Friday). Henry Bliss, according to contemporary accounts, was either disembarking from a New York City streetcar or helping a woman step out when he was struck by an electrically-powered taxi cab. He died from injuries to his head and chest the next morning.
tl;dr new technology is scary and we should just go back to the fiat standard and ride horses forever
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