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Cars transformed modern life—but automobiles alone were not enough. Cars would have been useless without a second invention: driving. Behind the daily commute is a vast, intricate system of customs, laws, and innovations that make driving possible. This system evolved over decades and its development wasn’t easy or fast. Ride along with Virginia Postrel and Charles C. Mann as they explore the hidden history of traffic, road design, and the strange creation of modern driving.
Picture the main street in a classic Western movie like Shane or High Noon. There are no lines down the middle. No stop signs, no speed limits, no left-turn lanes—in fact, no lanes at all. People ride their horses or drive their carriages wherever they want, however they want, no matter how crowded the street. They can do this because horses are intelligent beasts that won’t run into each other.
Then came the automobile.
People are now in charge—suddenly, totally, in ways they have not been before. The result: a tsunami of fatal car crashes. In 1913, more than 33 people died for every 10,000 vehicles on the road—more than 20 times today’s vehicular death rate.
One year later, Detroit police sergeant Harold “Harry” Jackson introduced the first stop sign, placing it at a particularly hazardous intersection. The idea caught on. It was the beginning of a thorough reworking of the landscape, one that changed daily lives so thoroughly that its very existence has been forgotten.
Subjects discussed include:
- Maple Syrup Fortunes
- Private Colonial Turnpikes
- Herbert Hoover’s Mighty Role
- Curious Explanations for Driving on the Right
- Stop Signs as Infringements on Pedestrian Rights
- Pennies from Inuit Children
- The Lincoln Highway
- Emily Post’s Cross-Country Drive
- Gasoline in the Pharmacy
- How Big Government Began
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References, further reading, and credits:
Social technologies: Richard Nelson, “Physical and social technologies, and their evolution,” 2003.
Stop signs: Clay McShane, “The Origins and Globalization of Traffic Control Signals, Journal of Urban History, 1999.
Early turnpikes and right-hand driving: Albert C. Rose, Public Roads of the Past. 1952-53 (2 vols.) From the preface: “Future generations will place Mr. Rose’s name among the very few that may be called major highway historians.”
Blue Book: Automobile Blue Book. 1901-1917 (vol. 1 of 3). The first Blue Book was in 1901, but it just covered the Northeast. The first edition that covered almost the entire country was 1907.
Lincoln Highway: Earl Swift, The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways.
Emily Post’s 1916 cross-country voyage: Emily Post, By Motor to the Golden Gate.
Los Angeles home-made crosswalks: Crosswalk Collective.
“Route 66” song: Nat King Cole Trio (the original and best version from 1946), Rolling Stones (classic rock cover), Depeche Mode (Virginia’s a fan)
General history of gasoline and petroleum industry: Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, 1991.
Best Calvin Coolidge biography known to your podcasters: Amity Shlaes, Coolidge, 2013.
Ditto, for Herbert Hoover: Kenneth Whyte, Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times, 2017.
Errata:
Harold Jackson, inventor of the stop sign, was called “Harry” Jackson, not “Henry,” as we erroneously said.
The Blue Books officially began publication in 1901, but originally covered only the Northeast. By 1907 (not 1908, as Charles inadvertently said), they covered most of the US–they were de facto national guides. Only in 1915 did they try to handle every bit of the United States.