Richard Dudgeon invented a steam-powered carriage in 1855 that could carry ten people at fourteen miles per hour, but New York City authorities banned it because it was too loud and terrified the horses.

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Richard Dudgeon invented a steam-powered carriage in 1855 that could carry ten people at fourteen miles per hour, but New York City authorities banned it because it was too loud and terrified the horses. Long before the internal combustion engine took over, this visionary was basically driving a rolling locomotive down Fifth Avenue, annoying the absolute hell out of the local aristocracy. Instead of embracing the future of mechanized transport, the city decided that the comfort of easily spooked equestrian livestock was far more important than technological progress. Now we have thousands of loud, gas-guzzling cars terrorizing pedestrians in that exact same city, proving that history is just a continuous loop of people trying to ban annoying vehicles