XPost: rec.arts.sf.written, rec.arts.sf.science
From: jclarkeusenet@cox.net
In article , robban@clubtelco.com
says...
>
> On 21/01/2014 2:09 pm, Your Name wrote:
> > In article , Robert Bannister
> > wrote:
> >> On 20/01/2014 1:34 pm, Your Name wrote:
> >>> In article , Robert Bannister
> >>> wrote:
> >>>> On 19/01/2014 7:52 pm, Thomas Koenig wrote:
> >>>>> Robert Bannister schrieb:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> In fact, towards the end of the 19th century the traffic situation
with
> >>>>>> horse-drawn vehicles was as bad if not worse than today. There are a
few
> >>>>>> photographs and drawings around of grid lock in London and elsewhere.
> >>>>>> Road accidents were also very common. No speedometers or speed limits
> >>>>>> back then.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> There were also a lot of cases of sudden acceleration (many more than
> >>>>> with today's cars). Traffic accidents were much more frequent as
> >>>>> a result.
> >>>>
> >>>> Although car drivers are no better and often worse than carriage
> >>>> drivers, at least cars don't get spooked by trivial noises or movements.
> >>>
> >>> Maybe not, but a driver can be spooked and lose control of the car.
> >>> Plus a car usually weighs quite a bit more and goes faster ...
> >>> therefore causing more damage.
> >>
> >> I'm not so sure about a loaded cart being lighter.
> >
> > A loaded cart should technically be compared to a van or truck, rather
> > than a car.
> >
> >
> >
> >> I'll concede the speed, although some young aristocrats in their light,
> >> but speedy 2-wheelers could set a cracking pace and who cares about the
> >> peasants?
> >
> > You'd find it difficult to get a horse (with or without a cart) going
> > at 100km/h along a suburban street though ... but most cars on the
> > other hand can easily do that, if illegally in most places.
>
> A horse and carriage hitting you at 30 kph will be quite sufficient to
> kill you. The horses shod hooves and the narrow, iron-shod wheels should
> give you the coup de grāce.
> >
> >
> >
> >>> Cars can also of course have unexpected problems, whether mechanically
> >>> or due to road / weather conditions (for example if the driver doesn't
> >>> know or see oil spilt on the road). Or the driver for some reason
> >>> health reason loses control (heart attack, passes out, etc.)
> >>
> >> These, plus the reasons I have snipped, could all have happened to the
> >> drivers of carriages and carts,
> >
> > I'm not sure there would be much oil on the roads used in the days of
> > just horses, and even if the cart driver suffered a health problem, the
> > horse is more likely to stop by itself than a car can (in fact a good
> > horse could safely carry on to the destination or home).
>
> Many stories told about bakers and milkmen who were allegedly carried
> from door to door and finally to the pub while their drivers were dead.
> All the same, the amount of horse and human dung, bits of rotting meat,
> mud, etc. on your average Victorian road would surely provide a surface
> worse than an oil slick. Horse will certainly stop, but they don't have
> powered disc brakes and they cannot stop as fast as a car. In fact, a
> horse's reaction to danger is usually to run away from it rather than stop.
However horses do have some instinct for self-preservation, which is the
major reason that a pike wall is an effective defense against cavalry--
if the horse was dumb enough to just impale itself on the pikes then it
would disrupt the formation, but horses are not that stupid.
So a horse would tend to avoid colliding with anything. On the other
hand, that doesn't mean that the horse has any clue regarding the
dimensions of the cart it is towing or the consequences of that cart
colliding with something.
Bear in mind that horse drawn transit does not run at anything like
automobile speeds. A good horse in good condition can sustain 10 mph or
so for a long time, but they aren't going to do a flat-out gallop for
more than a mile or so--don't assume that the maximum speeds that horses
have achieved are typical of day to day activities. If one gets
trampled by the horse one is in bad shape but that would take either a
very poorly trained horse or a very bad bit of luck--horses other than
warhorses are trained to not step on people (doesn't mean that they
won't, but if they do it's either an accident or cussedness). If you
can find any injury statistics for horsedrawn transit I think you'll
find that the big one is rider falling off of the horse, not horse
colliding with something.
> > Which simply proves what I said at the start, horses are just as
safe
> > (or unsafe) as any other form of transport.
> >
> >
> >
> >> although I expect any kids throwing rocks from a bridge would have been
> >> caught and given summary justice.
> >
> > They certainly used to (and likely still do) throw things off bridges
> > at trains going underneath.
>
> We used to balance stones and pennies on the rails.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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