Horse-drawn carriages navigating the congested streets of midtown Manhattan in the late nineteenth century actually moved at a faster average speed than modern combustion-engine vehicles do today.

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Horse-drawn carriages navigating the congested streets of midtown Manhattan in the late nineteenth century actually moved at a faster average speed than modern combustion-engine vehicles do today. Despite centuries of technological advancements, billion-dollar infrastructure projects, and the invention of high-powered sports cars, the average speed of traffic in New York City currently hovers around a blistering 4.7 miles per hour. You could strap yourself into a machine capable of breaking the sound barrier, but you will still be effortlessly outpaced by a casual jogger or an aggressive pigeon. It is the ultimate irony of modern transportation: we paved over nature and spent endless fortunes to conquer the tyranny of distance, only to create a permanent gridlock where a three-hundred-horsepower engine is utterly defeated by a double-parked delivery truck and a perpetually broken traffic light

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George Smith, a London taxi driver, earned the miserable honor of becoming the first person ever arrested for drunk driving in 1897 after slamming his electric cab directly into a brick building.

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Residents of Santa Catalina Island in California use golf carts as their primary mode of transportation because the government essentially banned regular cars to prevent a massive traffic apocalypse.

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Horse-drawn carriages navigating the congested streets of midtown Manhattan in the late nineteenth century actually moved at a faster average speed than modern combustion-engine vehicles do today.

A closer look

A bigger world.One discoveryat a time.

Keep exploring

When mandatory seatbelt laws were first introduced, what bizarre argument did the public use against them?

George Smith, a London taxi driver, earned the miserable honor of becoming the first person ever arrested for drunk driving in 1897 after slamming his electric cab directly into a brick building.

Residents of Santa Catalina Island in California use golf carts as their primary mode of transportation because the government essentially banned regular cars to prevent a massive traffic apocalypse.

The first hybrid car was built in 1899

How automatic transmissions changed cars

Statistical studies show that red cars do not actually receive more speeding tickets than other vehicle colors

A bigger world.
One discovery
at a time.