Motorcycle craze a century ago

Peter Minton was riding his scooter on Rockway Beach Avenue when the patrolman issued him a summons to appear in court. The reason is that the 16-year-old man is driving this car without a driver's license.

Minton didn't ride a lime, a bird, jump or spin. On the contrary, this news can be traced back to July 1939, when motorcycle scooters flourished for the first time in the United States. Long before Taobao in Silicon Valley was flooded with cheap rabbit scooters in American cities, when it hit the sidewalk around 1915, the autopilot first disrupted it.

The Online Bicycle Museum explained that the autopilot, the first mass-produced electric scooter in the United States, was "basically an enlarged scooter for children, with the engine mounted on the front wheel." Although some reports say that its speed can reach 35 miles per hour, the steering column controls the clutch and brake, and the museum points out that when it is pushed, the scooter becomes "unstable" for 2 miles per hour. Later, when Everready Battery Company purchased this set of equipment, a battery-driven self-driving car came out.

the concept of this scooter can be traced back to at least one century before 1817, Baron Karl von Drais de Sauerbrun of Germany. In his early two-wheeled debut, the concept of speed was quickly stripped into bicycles, tricycles and scooters. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, vehicles have been motorized for several decades, and rear pedal drive appeared in Scotland around the 184s. At the turn of the 19th century, battery-driven machines began to enter the market. In 1895, Ogden Bolton Jr obtained an American patent for a battery-driven bicycle.

, but autonomous driving (and its first-generation predecessor, motorcycle) can be regarded as "the true ancestor of modern motorcycle," according to the museum. At that time, there were almost no motor vehicle safety regulations on the road. In 191, Connecticut enacted the first national traffic law to regulate motor vehicles. About ten years later, when self-driving cars came out, new york also introduced the drunk driving law, and the traffic lights were still 15 years away.

Arthur Hugo Cecil Gibson's "self-propelled vehicle" was patented on July 25th, and in 1916 (U.S. patent 1192514)

Arthur Hugo Cecil Gibson, the inventor, was patented for the design of "self-propelled vehicle", although it seems that Joseph F. Merkel, the designer of flying Merkel motorcycle, is in the final product. These rides were made by the American Autopilot Company founded in 1913. In the autumn of 1915, the company opened a shop in Long Island City, Queens, new york. At first, the bicycle media at that time called self-driving cars "freaks", according to Jeffrey N. Stein, honorary senior historian of new york State Museum. However, this autopilot took longer than expected, perhaps because it attracted a large number of users. As its advertising copy shows, its marketing scope is very wide:

"Autoped is an ideal short-distance means of transportation for business or professional men and women to and from their business places; For women to shop or make phone calls; For doctors to make regular daily calls or answer emergency calls; For older children to go for an outing or go to school quickly; Servants are sent to handle affairs; Grocery stores, pharmacies and other businessmen go to deliver goods quickly; Commercial salesmen visit business; Employees commute; Collectors; Repairman; Messenger, and anyone who wants to save money, time and effort. Everyone will enjoy the fortress and fun of autonomous driving. In 1916, in Parker, Everett Shinn's self-driving girl, just as their modern similar products were attacked for becoming rich elite toys, the marketing of self-driving undoubtedly had a little class element. In 1991, the advertisement published in Ice Hockey magazine on the 6th, "Beware of the girl who was automatically dissected"-the picture shows a fashionable and wealthy white woman wearing a gorgeous hat and fur around her neck. Hammings Daily explained: "If you are the kind of person who bought gifts in 1916, which is equivalent to Huneman Marcus' Christmas catalog (maybe Hammacher Schlemmer), then there is a body on your list." , the classic car market blog.

, but autonomous driving is not just a toy for the rich. Just like previous bicycles, the appearance of motorbikes has promoted women's freedom and mobility, which makes the message of "Beware of girls who are driven automatically" more important. In Mashable, chris wilder tells the story of Florence Norman, a "feminist on a motorcycle", who rode her body to work in central London. At the same time, Amelia Earhart, a famous aviatrix company, appeared many photos near California, even after it stopped production around 1921. There is a photo of earhart on it, and it is easy to imagine why the title of one of the photos is: "In the near future, we are told that no one will walk at all." Lady Norman Florence went to London to work for her motorcycle in 1916. (Paul Thompson/FPG/AchivePhotos/Getty Images)

The company also tried autopilot. Perhaps the best example is new york Post Office, which uses ultra-thin bus service to deliver mail. To the disappointment of the police, criminals saw their window of opportunity in the flexible machine and repositioned it as an escape vehicle. "A group of noisy young people soon frightened Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan," wrote the Online Bicycle Museum, which highlighted those Bogert people with interesting names on Long Island. The museum pointed out that the organization even used these machines to hold the yonkers Grand Prix, led by the "legendary" fat burning. This is the first and last time.

Like the ubiquitous tourist bags traveling through Segway today, most machines are used for entertainment. Stein took a cheerful photo of two women participating in an impromptu autonomous driving competition on the beach in Long Island. This photo was taken for the 1916 issue of Motorcycle Illustrated. Historians point out that California enterprises had bought 5 machines by 1917 so that they could "rent them out at the beach resort next season." In the mid-191s, four EMS postmen of the U.S. Postal Service tried new scooters to invest in environmentally-friendly start-ups. A profitable business model is still a work in progress, and diplomatically, the life of autonomous driving was finally shortened by its bottom line. Erwin Terraga, the author of the illustrated encyclopedia of motorcycles, told Stan, "Like all other motorcycles in that period, autonomous driving was not a commercial success." The experts he interviewed said that this problem may be related to the demand for this device. This car is more expensive than a bicycle, but it does not provide a seat fortress for motorcycles.

this self-driving car may be a little earlier than what it provides. After the Great Depression broke out, Cushman pany began to make engines in the early 2th century, and started again where its predecessor left off, finding new uses in those frugal pennies. As the Great Depression continued, the company was trapped by redundant husky engines, so it was creative. In 1936, it first introduced the Cushman automatic glider. "As a by-product of the 1929 disaster, this motorcycle was praised for its frugality," Circular World magazine later wrote because of its price and gasoline demand. One of the pamphlets even claimed that driving an automatic glider was "free at all" and added, "Why, it is actually cheaper than walking."

In the end, the automatic glider and its widgets were troubled by the same kind of regulations that sent Peter Minton to the traffic court in 1939. The age of "dangerous driving" in the early 2th century was accompanied by legislators trying to understand the early age of automobiles. Amelia Earhart took a photo with a motorized scooter in 1935. (Corbis via Getty Images) In 197, * * * lamented:

"No attention has been paid to anyone's right to drive a car", which shows that "something similar to the French system is an ideal plan to issue drivers with a driver's license, and to provide them with an official card, in addition to revoking their driver's license, they will also be punished." In 193s, the United States needed to sentence the second or third serious crime to imprisonment, and the framework of such a system has arrived.

This sentence well shows that when the United States * * * imposed stricter traffic laws on young people, Cushman once again faced serious financial problems. "Josh Simms is in Kutman, and he recorded the evolution of cycling.

It's easy to see how the era we are in now echoes the first scooter craze. "Today's start-ups are promoting their products. They follow the same strategy as cars: let them go to the streets and then find ways to supervise them. This strategy has also pushed the valuations of Uber and Lyft to billions of dollars, "Michael J. Cohen wrote for Shi Ying in 218. However, it is still unclear how these vehicles will operate, because legislators once again play the role of catching up to regulate this round of riding.