Originally Posted by
rutan around
Was it one of your ancestors that said this new thingy called an automobile will never beat horses because the law says a man waving a red flag must walk in front of it wherever it goes. (For safety of course)
I think it were only the Poms that had a red flag requirement. If you look at the actual way all the traffic interacted (Horses, trams, push carts, bicycles, etc) when cars first came out you'd probably see why the 'regulators' were a little confused about just what to do about it all.
Here's a film shot in a large Yank city before WW1 (note the lady's wearing Queen Vic era clothes) when there were likely only a dozen cars in the entire city. Note, the same cars are doing laps around the camera rig. Also note the pedestrians running helta skelta to avoid being run over by trams, cars and horse rigs. And most of the cars are right hand drive:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NINOxRxze9k
I suspect we are at a similar 'confused' stage with the new fanged drone traffic..
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