Unintended Consequences of Technology
Created 400 years after Gutenberg’s first printing press, the potential of the internal combustion engine was initially underestimated. It struck many people as an interesting innovation, but some struggled to see why it would replace horses and carriages, which seemed to do a perfectly good job of getting people around. One person whose curiosity was piqued by the new horseless carriages occupies an unfortunate place in the history of transportation. Her name was Brigit Driscoll. She was one of the first to be killed in an auto accident.
On 17 August 1896, Bridget, who was then aged 44, was visiting an exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London with her teenage daughter, May. The exhibition included demonstration rides by the Anglo-French Motor Carriage Company. As she was walking through the grounds, Mrs Driscoll was struck by one of the vehicles and died of her injuries. The case was highly unusual and was referred to the Coroner’s Court for proper consideration. The jury was faced with conflicting accounts of the exact circumstances of the accident, including the actual speed of the vehicle. One of the witnesses to the accident said that the vehicle had been moving at “a reckless pace, in fact like a fire engine.” The driver, Arthur James Edsall, denied this and said that he had been traveling at only four miles per hour. His passenger, Alice Standing, said that the engine had been modified to make the car move faster than four miles an hour, though an expert witness who examined the vehicle contradicted this allegation.
After deliberating for six hours, the jury returned a verdict of accidental death. Summarizing the case, the coroner, Mr Percy Morrison reflected on the bizarre nature of this tragic episode and said he hoped “such a thing would never happen again.” Well, it happened again. More than 20 million people have now lost their lives in accidents involving motorcars. Like the printing press, the motorcar changed the world in ways that its inventors could not have imagined.
Robinson, Ken. “Out of Our Minds”
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