Category: history

Pedestrian access, safety and the American Automobile Association

Richard MasonerAugust 16, 20133 Comments on Pedestrian access, safety and the American Automobile Association

As part of their deliberate effort to redefine roadways for the exclusive use of automobiles at the expense of access and safety for anybody else, the American Automobile Association from their founding days recast pedestrians as the scofflaw other, while motorists are almost universally law abiding citizens.

From the February 9, 1922 issue of Michigan Roads and Forests Weekly: “Light percentage of blame for accidents attached to drivers.” You’ve got to love the clearly hyperbolic closing sentence, which claims “The jay-walker is the most serious menace to traffic safety today.”


The jay-walker is the most serious menace to traffic safety today

Be very afraid of the deadly pedestrian menace! Punish! Kill! Exterminate!

Or if that seems to messy and extreme, then socialize them to behave better around cars. Even today, California Senators Noreen Evans (Santa Rosa) and Mark DeSaulnier (Concord) believe pedestrians are the problem when it comes to traffic safety, if their Senate Resolution 12 17 is any evidence.

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Death penalty proposed for ninja salmon cyclists?

Richard MasonerAugust 9, 2013Leave a Comment

A writer proposes shooting unlit, wrong-way cyclists in 1898 Chicago.

it is night, and a man comes tearing on towards you, on the wrong side of the road — clearly a trespasser and in the dark — at the imminent peril of your life and carries no light — a further evidence of intended felony. …He endangers your life and property; he is about to commit an assault on you in the dark, so far as you can judge. Why should not the law permit you to shoot him at sight, in justifiable self-defence?

With a bonus bit of misogyny to round out the letter published in the September 1, 1898 issue of the League of American Wheelmen Bulletin and Good Roads.


Death to Ninja Salmons!

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Bicycle chain lube advice, 1898

Richard MasonerAugust 8, 20131 Comment on Bicycle chain lube advice, 1898

As seen in the July 1 1888 issue of League of American Wheelmen “Good Roads Bulletin.” The number is a League of American Wheelmen member number, I believe.


Chain lube advice, 1898

To secure a smooth and easy-running chain, No. 43,361 thinks there is no method equal to soaking it thoroughly in gasoline or benzine, scrubbing it clean with a stiff brush, and then boiling it in a mixture of equal parts (by measure) of beef-tallow, vaseline and plumbago. After wiping off, it is, he claims, “good for a thousand mile ride, with once in a while a little of the mixture applied to the sprocket teeth.”

Plumbago, I’m told, is an old fashioned word for graphite. Beef fat, petroleum jelly and graphite sounds like a seriously filthy mess.

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The Copper and the Scorcher, 1897

Richard MasonerAugust 5, 20131 Comment on The Copper and the Scorcher, 1897

“The Copper and the Scorcher,” poem published in the Washington Times 1897, no author listed.

He was a mounted copper,
  Upon an iron steed,
And was laying for the scorcher,
  Who rode at lawless speed;
When whizzing ’round the corner,
  At a breakneck, lightning pace,
Appeared a reckless rider,
  Whereupon the cop gave chase.

“I say there!” cried the bluecoat.
  As he humped himself about,
“You’re arrested for fast riding.”
  When the scorcher heard the shout
He looked o’er his shoulder,
  And he didn’t do a thing
But pedal all the harder
  And make the welkin ring.

“I like that,” said the “finest,”
  As through the thoroughfare
He started for his victim;
  And the crowd that gathered there
Cheered the racer, jeered the copper
  And wagered ten to one
On the scorcher as he sped along
  on that exciting run.

In and out among the horses
  And wagons on the street
They dodged about most artfully,
  Doing many a dangerous feat;
But the bluecoat was outdistanced,
  He set too slow a pace,
And his anger gave expression
  In the wrath upon his face.

At last grown weak and weary,
  The copper swore he’d shoot,
And reached back for his pistol,
  But the crowd cried, “Don’t, you brute!”
But he aimed it at the scorcher,
  If he didn’t I’m a liar;
“Bang!” and the scorcher tumbled,
  For the cop had pierced his tire.

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