Transport
Discover facts about transport. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Transport
Early prams could hide babies from view
Early carriages were built so excessively high and deep that the person pushing could barely see if the child was actually still inside the rolling fortress.
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Colombia’s buses that have no doors or windows
These vibrant artisan vehicles in Colombia are completely open to the elements, relying entirely on the passengers' sheer will to hold on tight during…
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Some bus drivers worked inside a glass oven
To maximize passenger space, older models put the engine right next to the driver in a tiny glass cube, ensuring they froze during winter and roasted…
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Why hoverboards don't actually hover
Capitalizing on decades of sci-fi nostalgia, manufacturers slapped the name on two-wheeled self-balancing planks that spend their entire miserable existence…
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Why Vespas Have a Wide Front Shield
The iconic scooter shape wasn't just for vintage style points; it was specifically molded with a wide front shield to keep oily mechanical bits from ruining…
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Cuba turned trailers into camel-shaped buses
During severe shortages, Havana resorted to welding massive metal humps onto flatbeds, creating monstrous people-carriers that looked exactly like two-humped…
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Why Onewheels leave cities guessing
Because they only have a single point of contact with the ground, many municipal laws simply cannot figure out if they are a vehicle, a toy, or just a public…
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What omnibus really means
Before we lazily shortened it to three letters, it was a Latin term meant to loudly declare that absolutely anyone with a few coins could cram themselves…
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Why chopper motorcycles are called choppers
The iconic style wasn't born in a factory design room; it came from rebellious riders literally chopping off every unnecessary piece of metal with a hacksaw…
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Why trikes can feel like the worst of both worlds
You get all the terrifying exposure to the elements of a normal bike, perfectly combined with the absolute inability to filter through heavy traffic like a…
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Why “escalator” stopped being a brand name
The Otis company fiercely protected the name until they foolishly used it as a generic term in their own advertising, legally losing the exclusive rights to…
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The toilet-powered trike with a porcelain seat
In a bizarre PR stunt that no one asked for, a famous bathroom fixture brand created a trike that runs on bio-gas, complete with a literal porcelain toilet…
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Open-top buses began as a practical workaround
Before they were beloved by tourists in cheap ponchos, open-topped variants were literally just regular models that accidentally had their roofs chopped off…
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Polo played on Segways
Forget riding actual ponies. A very niche group of enthusiasts literally ride around on motorized platforms whacking a small ball with mallets in complete,…
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Was the pogo stick invented for muddy roads
The iconic bouncing stick was supposedly created by a frustrated father who just wanted his daughter to be able to cross the filthy dirt roads without…
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Bendy buses routinely block entire intersections
Articulated models were supposed to solve capacity issues but instead just created massive metal snakes that get permanently stuck turning tight city corners,…
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Why spiral escalators are so rare
Creating curved moving stairs is so incredibly complex that only one company on earth effectively manufactures them, making them a rare and wildly expensive…
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The buses that ran on spinning flywheels
Instead of normal fuel, these absolute death traps used a giant internal flywheel spun up at stops to violently propel the vehicle forward until it inevitably…
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Snowmobiles once carried doctors through blizzards
Before becoming sleek recreational machines, they were heavy, boxy, tracked vehicles specifically designed to help country doctors reach stranded patients in…
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The buses that carried coal stoves
Long before modern fuels, certain transit models essentially required a roaring fireplace bolted to the back, belching thick black smoke directly into the…
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Chaperoned walking buses exist for children
To avoid using actual vehicles, some neighborhoods organize literal human chains where highly stressed adults herd a blob of brightly colored kids down the…
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These tiny bikes are built for adults
These miniature bikes look exactly like they belong to a toddler, but they are specifically engineered for adults who want to look completely ridiculous while…
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Cafe racers were built to beat a song
Stripped down and highly aggressive, these bikes were modified by youths purely to race from one greasy spoon diner to another before a specific rock song…
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Electric unicycles make riders look like statues
Hiding a massive motorized wheel between their calves, riders zip around city streets completely upright with zero effort, looking intensely focused and…
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