now historian dan albert talked about his book, he chronicles the history of u.s. autos and argues against tribalist cars, this is about an hour and 45 minutes. >> tonight we are joined by historian and automotive journalist, he spent a career writing in teaching about the history and culture of technology, his articles can be

found in the journal for behavioral sciences, he holds a ph.d. in history from the university and michigan where he also taught in the college of engineering, he also served as a curator of vehicle collections at the national museum of size in london, he is the author of are you there yet, the american automobile past present and it is available for signing at the conclusion of the program, so please join me in welcoming him this evening (applause) >> thank you so much, that was really lovely, thank you amanda, really generous and sweet introduction, i think everybody for being here i especially amanda has told me that the

people have remind me how engaged these audiences are or that come to these events, so i feel like i have to be up on my toes and give you my a game to take this seriously and to be a little intellectual, be a little heavy talking about the past present and future of the automobile, there is a lot of material in the book, everything from teaching my daughter to drive to floridian analysis of henry ford but i can't obviously capture all of that tonight so what i thought i would do is try to talk about the early period and the theory of how one understands that and the reason i'm doing that is to put us in the present moment where some of you may have heard drivers cars are on the rise but at the end of the day

i really want to talk about cars and i'm both a lover and a heater of cars for a variety of reasons and i'm looking forward to hear from you about your experience in the automobile, so without further ado let's get started with cars, he has to show you this how many have seen that have got to see it and keep your hands up if you state and listen to the entire soundtrack, how many of you went through the gift shop and bought the final record and brought it home and played it these two i know them them. i realized halfway through it, how many of you own a car? how

many of you own a toyota? how many of you own a mercedes? how many of you own an american car? how many of you don't own a car at all or rarely drive? we are going to talk about cars. the museum of american history as it was back in 1974, just an thrall. maybe the capital building and see the airplanes, but mostly go to history and technology. i was much fatter

back then. this is a stock photo from the smithsonian collection. i want you to get a sense of it. talk a little bit about what that exhibition tells us about what we think about technology. the hard part was the prospect --

understanding technology, i realize this got an implicit story behind it. that story is a technological evolution. machines are invented and they ping-pong their way through our lives. gutenberg invents the printing press, people learn to read. we don't think about the very much a lift experience

technology shows that it would bite we don't really think about a story behind it. it. that also is reinforced here. there is an implicit understanding that technology was important, that technology advances become more efficient bigger cars faster cars. over time. i want to show you quickly, i hope you can -- hope you can see things. you can see there's a high wheeler pulling out. then we are away from the even more modern bicycles to get better and. better right to the left. they get horse and wagon, horse and wagon better.

you can see from the far left corner all the way to the back, more advance car, more advanced car. you can see gas pumps there to a little later one. and of course the centerpiece, the race car. we the pinnacle of automotive capability. we don't know much about what it was like to drive where was it born how did people experience it experience it? do people go to just something it happened on the side. 2009 i think it is america on the move exhibit. general motors transportation hall hall, the 1401 is in that hall. a gorgeous train. but also there is an intention and

purpose. that is to stop organizing them in terms of technical differences. no point in putting a six cylinder engine over there that's not a point. i believe a man to get over there today i believe that's 55, 55 country squire wagon. wagon. all of that is beautiful. there are people, there is content. i wonder if they are even moving. the kid looked a little unhappy here. you also have the girl with a

the bicycle is about learning to drive learning the rules of the road. by the same token, you look at a little red car, bicycle. learning in a sense to drive. that's a kitty car. kids like toy cars. but more to the point, children rehearsing what their parents do. you learn how to be an adult. that is part of american society and culture. that's the way the automobile fit in society. fifties mannequins in the exhibition. again old-school, old-school, this is a 1950 somebody can correct me, i'm pretty sure you can tell by the grills the

girls are gorgeous. the three holes on the side. classic buick symbols. didn't even do anything that said that's gorgeous lots of interesting things to say the way in a wheelchair set an effort to make it look heavy. this is a vehicle with very low -- float along its magic carpet in a lot of ways. the problem is of course you have to go to a car dealer. i feel terrible fleeced for people here. they are in for eternity going to be negotiating with a car salesman.

and carlson here? one of the most disruptive things is that the able to avoid cardio ship. there's an interesting story about mechanics in cardinal is an hour trust of them leaving that aside, it's actually very inconvenient very 20th century wait by something. you have a thought, you had your phone, why doesn't that happen with cars? some companies are trying to do that and for me god forbid government should see lamborghini and then that's my phone event for next thing i know amazon drops a box and there's my car. that purchase process is not in the system it's real problem for consumption of the automobile.

that's kind of the way i want to frame this. i don't want to look so much at the bullet, although i said i would like to look at it a lot but i don't want to understand so much buick except for the context of what it meant for people and how it interacted with people's lives. how did the family use it? what was it like when you talk a daughter and son how to drive in the view? it what was the first experience what was it like to have a double crop clutch all those things, would like to buy it what we like to get it fixed? what was what was it like when it finally died was it any of those things. that goes to the way we think the process of innovation and the process of invention. again

you think about drive less cars, they are being invented. but the fact that they've been invented many times. but as i'm talking, i will show you the automobile has been invented many times in history. if i asked you after that we had what would you say the automobile was invented? nothing hundreds? 19? ten 1898. very specific here. what give me a month? there you go. i'm going to prove you wrong but anyway. the question is not so much birth, its adoption. it's born many times i will show you how that happens. the real questions i have our two. one not why was it invented but why was adopted? why did the inventions exceed? also what

was it really? you get into a car you go it's a machine for getting to places transportation device. obviously, when the travelers car people think about it that's what they think about they're not thinking about how it's gonna sit in your driveway what it's like to be around an automobile. that's kind of a strange question what is on it not immobile? but the same token i think would be surprised perhaps to learn the travelers cars have been invented many times. thought about the technology described him in the thirties, tested in the 19 fifties and proven quite viable by government testing and in 19 nineties. two things are important about. that we have them, why didn't we pursue them? it turns out as you look at it a bit more deeply, that's

a driver's cars but they are very different than a driver list cars that are coming next. what we will look a little bit i'd wear those novelist cars were like and with novelist cars are like today. so you are all wrong, the automobile was invented at 16 72. he was in missionary jesuit monk, went to china. when they're determined emperor into question, trying to convince him to bring christianity it's kind of cool car, there is a ball. hose, fire. very simple, very straightforward. steam driven out of it. spends a turbine. their mind drives a couple of

wooden gears, wheels, off you go. the big wheel in the back it is for steering and i don't quite see how that works from the drawing but i'm sure they had it figured out. this was actually only big enough to carry rat. but the question is not it didn't work very well, maybe not so what. why didn't somebody look at in and go all right it's a good start let's do that someone. imagine if over the last 400 years or so the chinese have decided to pursue rat cars. we would have pretty good red cars. we would have cars to carry a lot of rats. we see that it was invented and we can't quite say that it and work but we can't say it wasn't adopted. this is a fascinating one. this is 1790. mason reid. patented

esteem powered self propelled road vehicle. a car. at the time there was no u.s. patent office which is hilarious. i think the patent is george washington signature. the patent office hadn't been invented. yet you have this idea, he got a patent and what did he do with it? he didn't start selling steam carriages. in 1790. no capital available no interest let's look at -- this is one of my favorites i, call it the first amphibious car. very accomplished engineer he did a lot with process innovation and flour mills making flower for bread mills if you will. he was building a boat for the city of

philadelphia that goes out and digs up the mud we was also interested in what he had is pretty light weight steam engine, in collecting capital attracting capital for car business. so rather than getting some guys and wagon and dragging the thing to the water he said i'm going to put wheels on it and show it off that's exactly what he did so we may call it a first amphibious car. 18 or five no cars yet. this is this is one of my favorites. i will show you in a second. another version. this is a thing 53. the audience 16 wagon. this is a thing 53 that car burned in a fire. the boiler sat in the middle, he was essentially many bus around a very successful business bringing people out to long

island from new york city. did about three miles per hour. for comparison, ford model t came about in 1909 it is about 40 miles per hour. perfectly fast, perfectly viable. it's not about -- his reason for developing the car has nothing to do with what you might think it is. it's not about transportation per se. he said he wanted to and the fearful misery of horses. this was something developing in this period the spca sensitivity for animals thinking there are not machines to be abused but as creatures. just quickly here's another version of it. this is 1856 i showed to you because it's in the smithsonian collection. it is not on display we are the curators

they should be on display.. it's just a great machine to look at. it it does tell us something about road transport. i understand i was a curator it's not easy. now he is most interesting one. this is also in the collection, a little model path model different times in history you had to produce not just a drawing but a physical model the machine. 1879 this is patent, by a patent attorney. he was very smart. he describes lightweight hydrocarbon explosion internal combustion engine able to deal with any reasonable incline we

just think of as a car 1879 the vehicle is now produced very st. mark paton attorney he kept filing amendments so different ways you can extend a pattern you can kind of extended you've got patent pending but you can do various things to make sure you pattern you have to impending in 1995 the automobile has arrived. the automobile has been borne, automobile was certainly quite viable but mid 19th century 18 seventies but it's not until the 1890s that picked up. here we are about 1900. i will just like this for a second because i know people want to know about electric cars. also how many of you are driving electric cars, one, to okay

tesla? tesla? okay. so one of the big questions people always ask is why do we get gasoline cars and not electric cars you can ask the same question about steam cars. if you look up the top here. there about 4000 vehicles in the country in 1900. as you can see steam, an electric outpaced the internal combustion. historians look at that internal combustion cars are better than you really have to ask yourself a more complicated question. is a goldfish better than a pigeon? i don't know. pageants can fly pigeon scans can't fly patients

can't swim goldfish can't fly. in fact, the electric vehicle had a very good business model and was very viable for urban transportation as early automobiles where it was also cleaner, quieter, more sensible. it will be blasting at a time with automobiles than we do have glass and shook and glass would just crack. the other thing is that the electric car out of business model very different than what you think about the business model you think of the last hundred years. they sold cars the people it will beg money bill more cars, the electric vehicle companies, i want you

to think about hubert for a minute. that's what they were. in 1899, they had one taxicabs in new york city, a bit of a taxi ride you could rent a vehicle for a week or four months, you could buy the vehicle. they were relatively expensive but you could buy one. whether fan was that they had a hard time providing taxing because so many people released them holding them for a long period of time. it was a viable business. so what killed it? a couple of things cultural they will talk about a minute but in terms of growing concern in terms of business, one of the things that killed it was an attack on monopoly. if you recall you're history, roosevelt, the trust buster, this is 1890 turn of the century, trust are bad things started oil -- and particular

got a big support of the gasoline automobile refer to them as the leg cab trust they were rapidly expanding. -- you do need to have in all fairness monopoly -- what is good if you only have three lives and you want to ride forget about it the whole point is to have a lot of them they were providing him on a mobility as a service. they want they were not interested in selling a vehicle they were interested in selling you a ride. the expanded rapidly they kept increasing the capitalization, then went they were beginning to a bit of a scandal stock price went that kind of thing. let me talk now

about what the automobile is will we get 1890s 1893. again we can talk about was the first automobile, after getting like the car it was complicated. but i just want to show you two of them here. 1893 also in a museums collection that was did -- 38 very lightweight cars (inaudible) they won races and were very durable. he'll climbs, long distance runs good car. steam is there were not like stanley twins. between 1905 a

little bit earlier 19 or three, 1897 or so 1800 it was very viable machine. it accelerated easily it was quiet popular car. the problem is those, were not first cars that really captured the attention of the people who could afford cars. the people who could afford cars were the rothschild, vanderbilt the asked years, the top ten of 1% what they did you think of them as americans but the intermarried with europeans it would cruise back and forth europe on ocean liners. meanwhile in france as 1893 let's look at these two joe. it might look at this, it's got

lights. got. lamps the real car. in fact you are producing them. place very lunch basket there. so this is not just like a little tricycle. bicycle, this is a serious car. 1893. the french if this up. but they don't need it up in the sense of transportation. these are rich bans toys. young man who especially inherited wealth. this is, i'm sorry, this is not a pre-show i don't misstep. this is one of the most significant vehicles okay ... my french ... motor located

under the seat. this vehicle has motor out here seems simple enough. as the motor gets bigger, there's no place for it back here. just because the system kind it is one inches are out in front. once you are in front you can get bigger and bigger. this really creates the modern architecture if you will of the automobile. cars bigger and just get bigger, also these were powerful anywhere fast. they were fun., again i think we've got a bit more light we have a little bit more luxury but mostly we have more power. we have quote this is new york times, francis pay the most attention, yeah late to beginning american pride we will make up lost and then we will lead the world as we do

this about all of the things that. we are number one right? this is from the same article this is a 1900 automobile show. we reported from the times says fortunately none of these guys in america have adopted that for freak, the wheel. so they are still excited (inaudible) it's not a simple, it has to do with the something called the ackerman steering system. it really is a major advance, engineering. advance a lot of things about the automobile i could talk about, why it comes in the 1890s. it has to do with demographics and rising immigration, particularly immigration from places like southern italy where you have a bunch of catholics coming in, jews coming in, and not good

immigrants early in the 19 century but the ones not so nice to hang around so you begin to have those wealthier i say that in a of how the waltzed native born consider themselves back then this is not a cometary for me. you have strong -- it's a new exciting thing in the city. what was a little figure electrification of the street are. in the 18 fifties, cities were basically as big as you could walk across. a couple of miles. in about half an hour you could walk a radius. electric streetcar the begins to expand, the idea is the automobile will focus on that i will focus on

one of the many elements and that's the bicycle. now we think of the bicycle and automobile as enemies and certainly they are anybody who rides a bike on the street knows. but they are a lot of ways that bicycle establishes the car culture. huge by craze in the 1890s. you can't even begin to imagine bike races got huge crowds. a bicycle fashion, bicycle advertising. playing cards with bicycles on the back from that period that's what it's about. just to show you a couple of examples, this i left. this is a very sociable bicycle. all kinds of different ones. you can see well here but i don't even think he has a wheel under their. i think it is just like a side car. it's kind of balanced, i have to look into that but that's --

you want to (inaudible) ... (inaudible) (laughs) this is a guy named major tailor and number one racer in the country. obviously african american at a time when african americans racing against white wasn't typically done. the fact that he made a career in the business is incredible. the other hand with the travel we had to go to certain hotels. here's what i want to touch on very quickly. there are a lot of these women clubs, women's biking clubs and they were part of the suffragettes. women's empowerment in the period. one of the things you will notice is that they are wearing long skirts. black change, anybody

bike with a long skirt? you have to do this if you have the straps finally at lunch (inaudible) (laughs) this doesn't work so what do they do? i will tell you what they do. this bloomer. women start wearing bloomers. oh my god you! can see (inaudible). this is a pretty big deal people have moral panics by these things. >> moral panic about women on bicycles. women out by themselves. you can see the give you the context back in

the day, now you get baseball cards come, i don't even know if they give you got many more, cigarette packs, cigar packs people collect them. let's look at this one way up in the corner here. you can see a lady on a bicycle. obviously this lady has a bicycle. look at all the showing look at the leg showing. so what are they saying? if women are gonna start dressing like that what is next? they're gonna start smoking cigars. can you imagine? women smoking cigars that manly thing they are turning into men! ? there is that moral panic there was a period of women's empowerment. let me show you a bit more about bicycle culture and connected to the car culture. it's about the sex

appeal, it's also about empowerment. i think i have another slide. danger in speed. not typical with a chain these are called high whalers. the biggest we are the faster you go. saying -- simple physics. the high wheel the faster you go by the time you're up, it is five feet in the air you are going pretty fast. now you look like akasaka on a horse. we were we figuring to them as choristers i'm -- 1901, speed and danger. this is henry ford racing alexander wooden. the idea that henry ford who was pretty much a field business a

businessman at this point beat the rights of the biggest car company in the country was a huge. deal when -- the car spotted in the race and he lost and people when wild. i love this line. a man was so excited -- so excited he hit his wife on the head to keep it from flying off to handle that description, i don't know any way (inaudible) ... this is another side with celebrity cyclist henry ford got to his next race or just a few years later this is the 19 up to. this thing is insane. he is sitting in what amounts to it like a drawing room scene seat.

he pulled the legs off. out of force bedroom and put it on. there he is steering with a flat bar with two handles. the engine is huge, sucked in like five five gallons of air with every stroke huge. amounts of air, horsepower, than 90 miles per hour. no seatbelt, no airbags, no dashboard. you're the kind of case is out, drenched in oil oil sprayed everywhere. it was not this was ford were gonna make it as light as possible. that's the beauty of it you have no idea how to drive. people said you are bike racer. he said yes i tried. plenty of reasons why it's this because of the instead of this is that it -- he didn't know. that was a very

exciting people rushed out to these races. magazine throughout raise crowds were so people of what people didn't levels when the rich folk started tearing for. cities they were colonizing the streets driving people out of the way you can see the policemen here dodging the road. by the way the crusade of the 500, the charge of the 400 sorry. back in the day there was a social socialist and everybody was listed on it. that's the job there. william venable the second, was the most notorious one of these guys. the ones who really got

into were men have inherited wealth. fathers and made a fortune. vanderbilt told a reporter maybe he thought it was an analyst he said wealth is a certain to ambition as cocaine is to morality. in other words he had nothing to excite him in life life is the easy. so the automobile shows up and off he goes. there's also an interesting op-ed. vanderbilt wanted to build a raceway on long island. private raceway. nor the cars, not the people on it. the times over the tory lines and said they don't want that. the fun of racing to them it's so they could get to pedestrians

without killing them. let me turn now to how we deal with this problem. problem in the city. we begin to try to control the chaos of traffic. ex -- traffic phrase we need to bring order from chaos. hopefully i can get this to work. i'm going to show you a pretty remarkable scene. it is 1906, four days before the san francisco earthquake, and the deadly stones on the front of a street car, cracking away on camera. so you will see people looking it is the pretty amazing thing. just riding down market street watching the traffic. what i want you to do is look at a traffic and let me just add there's no sound in

the original, but from some film historians thought it would be nice and it is a very sympathetic thoughtful job of adding sounds so you do get i hope, a sense i, hope that works really get a sense we will just look at a few minutes of it you will see right down. attract

that will be our stop. you see a bunch of cars and there. look at it closely they are the same cars. you can see the license tags. i'm pretty sure he hired these cars. there aren't that many cars in san francisco. it does give you a sense of what

is happening as more vehicles come in. they're a little bit faster a lid crazier at the weave in and out. but as you can see there's no rules of the road it's chaos. it does work. people rundown must because their accident it does work it's a functional space and it's a multi functional space. not market street there's a big will far but you see the street as multi functional space over time as the automobile comes in as a concern develops a concern about traffic crashes it's pretty much a pivotal year

spiking automobile that's just keeps despite its bikes in the middle of the depression also gallop came out in 1935 saving a few minutes risking your life in other words slowdown drive carefully. what was different was nobody had done it full-on blood and gore story he talks about, he visits actual accidents right after the happened. he talks about bone sticking out, he talks about a woman's face so full of blood all you can see is a whole in middle where her mouth was. gruesome stuff. that was in

order to shock people at complacency hearing about death and so on. it does have an impact. it doesn't make people drive safer that it makes people go oh my god, gallop polls say people they want more policing. determining them, they mean bad drivers. so right in this period it's interesting 1935, the aaa comes out with, nothing very 60 engine insurance industry comes out with a textbook. and a press makes heroes of traffic engineers and traffic policemen called traffic psychologist. actually psycho technologist. this is the 1930s, we are in a period where you general thinking is considered size. we are in a period where science generally is on the ascendant

the expectation that problem but signs can solve problems. i'm not going to touch about fixing driving fixing the role of fixing the carbon mostly fixing the car out of the picture for those of you that are familiar with it rough and it wasn't just a presidential candidate, from the 1960s he wrote on road safety airbags, all the things that we now live with in this automobile automotive cohen it will. ivan but in 1930s following publication of sudden death as it was called. the auto industry did get involved at least in the rhetoric of driver safety and started advertised a vehicle with safety components. so we have better breaks, we have safer roof so it won't

crash so, american auto companies were terrible gm was the worst safety glass, seatbelt air airbags at every turn we can talk about that if you want, but it really wasn't a 1930s research in the crash survival and some of that research made it, particularly studebaker a guy called paul often. that's different than in 1960 solution. what are we gonna do? this is 1983 on the right. this is the first set of traffic rules set up in new york city. a little guy named william phelps. very patrician. he was -- caught in the block a

very wealthy got another member of rich family. he did not like the chaos of the street. just blockade and he was a child at the time, he was think it is only 12 wagons here this is not. we must be able to do something. as i got older in 1903, he convinced the police department to institute a set of rules. there it is, the things we just take for granted. turning left the other car has right of way. that spreads very state and local agents come together particularly 1920s begin to create a uniform code one of the problems is you could be driving mississippi alabama and will change. also on the left is a traffic light. this is fascinating to me. you

come to an intersection, there's a traffic light. you have to stop. running red light is one of the most dangerous things that happens. red like cameras are supposed to stop that. a rotary which we see coming in i'm talking about modern traffic rotary's as anybody been on a newest road we have you noticed is showing up? there's gonna be more and more of them. they are safer. even if you bump into something there you're not gonna be able to do a tee boneyard are gonna be safer you're gonna be you're not going to die. but the traffic like a light is the solution of this time it is focused on let's behave let's make sure people behave and if people don't behave, we have a problem. so what we do we have a problem? deterrent policing. police are there surveilling, keeping an eye on everything and everyone. you may recognize

especially if you have younger kids what's called, the hate to give. it centers around the shooting of a young black man unarmed black man by policemen. on the right is the shooting of the london castillo. he was on armed, double transcript i read recently about it. was it justifiable was it not? we can argue about that but to me that's not the story. he was pulled over something like 40 times in the previous six months.

they are searched way more, encounters with police often and badly, the reality is we are breaking the rules all the time, yeah you are good, you are all good drivers, and you never roll through a stop sign, and you never have a frank light on, but of course we all do, i have done it, and i'm the best driver. so what we really have is a set of rules and it started in 1903 and allows us to expand, so what we are allowed in text, maybe they think you're getting number in the wrong part of town and you failed a signal and they can pull you over. they can even arrest to, they don't usually do, it too much paperwork right, but they can haul you into jail

in most states and that is weird, so i like to say, we talk about driving because of the way we have decided to improve the safety of motor vehicle traffic, we are all driving while black, we are all susceptible to the general warrant, this is an excerpt in the nineties, a pre-court decided that sobriety was constitutional, what happened? so mothers against drunk drivers got a hold of president reagan's ear and said our children are being killed by these drug drivers we have to check and get them off the road, a lot of problems with that, the methods they want to tour -- used were ineffectual, most children who die and drunk driving accidents are actually

riding with the inebriated driver, but as a fourth amendment search and seizure, and they said well look, it's 25,000 people a year being killed by a drunk drivers and therefore this is okay, very strange decision, and there are not 25,000 people a year being killed and that is to me one of the most interesting thing, but the statistics we used to talk about this, another element affecting me driver, very strange, so this is 1930s and i did my dissertation work on this and they -- you have a few tickets, a few too many or gotten a crash and did something the judge thought was a little weird in a courtroom and they would send you to a

psychologist, they would do a fall work up, i tests, added to tests, intelligence test, these watches, this is the react graph and as you can see this is low, as a famous psychiatrist and he's out this is so important and as you can, see this is a stage photo and he was saying let me get this right because this is going to be an objective members mint, and hear his assistance showing the film and i think these two ladies must be, another psychologist and secretaries, i don't think those are our patients and that is what they are, called patients so as i said i did my dissertation on doctoral work and the idea was, we find bad drivers and we

correlate that so in other words you do a psychometric test and they decide to have a bad attitude, maybe you're crazy or senile, whatever, they tell the judge to take his license away or maybe they think a little bit of a sociopath and take the license away. so i correlated all this, pea values, regressions, all of that and it has nothing to do with whether or not you work a driver, has to do with either you are black or white, woman or a man, emigrant, typically from places like syria, and two, that would correlate very well with the outcome if you are, the disposition of your case, okay let's keep going, so this is another way that affects the driver, driver education. it so how many of you have done drivers it? so public school,

drivers education, now here it is the local government paying for you, now it's changing but paid for you to learn to drive, isn't that strange. why is that part of the curriculum and what is really about, turns out the easier the cars to drive, the textbook got bigger and bigger, they were on just about driver training, who was not just how to operate the vehicle, is about citizenship, becoming an adult, it was about some other things that i'm going to try to show you so this is the 1930s and they would have safety parades and different studies and i think this is kansas city but i'm not sure but this is the school children and safety parade, going before the

reviewing stand and i want you to notice it's hard to, see it's not a great image but, there is the school in the school kids and notice the sign right here, america first, safety always, that seems to be a bit of a, what should i say conflating a couple of different ideas i don't take that too deeply but i've always been fascinated by that so for a long time i thought these were pictures of hillary on the back what they are traffic lights on, now this is a get even, short film but it is a march on washington, a parade, school safety patrols, i was in school safety, all right let's go back, we have to get this to iran so there is joe de blasio, let's see if we can make this bigger, fairly unclear but see the helmets and the marching,

learning to march and step and, many of you have this? we have the orange bouts and the soldier strap,, eyes and ears, the guys with the shields, just quick because if i can, that is the county in georgia, in the 19 eighties the cow county was the side of the biggest drivers education, and the reason was the federal government were getting more interested in the

education, they found it caused them to get a younger's age and driver education was counterproductive. let's watch a lot more marching, i wish we had the music, to look at that on, what is that about?, i always be careful and you know you have to give them the flag, confederate soldiers, that's ok, look at this, there they are, against accidents, the flags, the way dresses so, let's see if i can do this, right very complicated, now recap way we

have to present again, come on help me out. >> we will get to review everything talking about engineering driver in some weird ways trying to do it. ultimate solution we seem to have now is eliminated driver. let's see if we can engineer better road. again, pivotal year 1935 famous painting famous for the pitchfork

painting this is called death on a ridge road. again, the response could've been slow, down don't pack, don't rush past another vehicle don't speed, that's a two-way road that's bad idea you are a bad driver. what's gonna happen! beautiful bright red truck people are gonna die. it's gonna be gruesome a lot of people look at that and said we need more, laws we need to get bad rivalries off the road other peoples said let's get rid of the ridge road. let's get rid of the ridge in the road. and that's a good i exactly would be into. do we think the interstate highway system in 1956, eisenhower, in the suburbs ruffled potato chips, the suburbs dip, barbecue but actually the planning begins in the 1930s and begins in this context.

it's all of the things you would expect. it is about work, everybody is out of work, a lot of shovels to build a highway. it is about safety, even today the interstate highway system is twice as safe as other roads and surfaced rates. it's about getting rid of those cars, references to vehicles running willy-nilly or the landscape. we need to control them. instead of being a symbol of front freedom or maybe it is a it is about freedom but it's about controlling traffic. i like to think of it as a railroad. a concrete railroad with rubber tires. the other mystery exit it's just like missing or stop, on the subway if you miss your exit you have to go the next one turnaround take the train back. you get on

and off only certain places and that's what makes it work. the other element of it is urban renewal. this is a great quote this is, i should say this is a frontispiece front page for the original report describing national freeway system delivered to fdr and he tries to get it funded very hard times. but also 1930 19 1956 not too distant in time because of course we have to watch it's also about urban renewal. a lot of people think highways come in and that's not but really the purpose of these highways was not, okay let's destroy the city we hate the city, it's almost untenable occupied with a humble citizens different the business quartz these are the

slams right-of-center of the city right into business district and for a city slum a blight near it's very. core we will use highways as a way to rebuild the city. this of course is exactly what he did. if you went to the world's fair in 1939, you got that that pin, i want one of those. i actually wanted to see the future. ralph neither who was no friend of general motors, he recalled going as a young kid walking with his parents holding his hand and rushing off and yelling gm, gm! she was so excited about the exhibit lots of people were. so this was the idea. look at how wide that. is and they just go it looks it looks like eight lanes and it goes right through the city super blocks of towers this is

what you. do you wait a long, light something like 25 million people went to this in a course in 1939 something you call the carry go. around it would rotate around this around. some traffic engineers but mostly -- how we doing on time? are you board? we have ways to go. stick with it it's brilliant let's look at what happened with highways highways were doing fine when they were out in the sticks but there is nobody to bother them but this is washington d.c., this is a 1950 layout with freeways are gonna go to the city and very quickly here is in or in a beltway you can see the district lines here this is

inside the district you're gonna have the beltway. that's gonna work out. good 66 will come in and keep going. i think this is now three 90 5 am guessing, yeah, that seems like a good idea and 95 is gonna cut across, here there is the range, just take that highway right across the river and of course again we want to revitalize the city through all the slums, turns out people in those moms and this happened all around the country but i will tell you a little bit about, it it's a fascinating story, i have been thinking about this lately because, i don't know if any of you have been following the plan to biden highways and

that's just a high tech solution but the reality is what we are talking about, adding highway lanes and what gone me was the rhetoric, so peter the secretary of transportation by the way, last job was working for a company that built highways and he got in, trouble but anyway, and people were against this, so he complained about, very active vocal minority opposed to reducing the gesture, he insists we need more highway lanes, larry hogan, there is a bunch of pro traffic activists where they plot to keep the roads filled with traffic,

that's not quite as bad as what happened in 1960, eight years a quote from angela is one of the leaders of the highways, she recalled fbi harassment and noted that this newspaper, sorry, the washington post quote called this everything from communist to pink goes to that little band of discontented people, that engagement or that conflict is there and still there, again i'll try to keep moving here but this is fascinating, this is tammy added, he was an old school, looks a little bit like mr. magoo, but he was an old school labor right, union organizer back in the thirties and he really knew how to organize people to get things going, this is regional booker, he was a president, and part of the reason i think he was the president is they adopted this

slow and, white man's roads through blackmon's homes, which if you look across the country it's very much true, some areas events and that is why we want to do, we want to racially segregated this, town we want to tear up cincinnati and have a multiple lane exchange and in reality it was in quite that way it was white black neighborhoods by using that slogan really captured the moment so i think that's interesting i think it's interesting that we are facing that again, so let's keep moving, okay, why driver this car is no, we are not getting safe and simple, we have gasoline cars, we are not getting a mobility as a service

we have to sow a card of the people who have them, it's not what's going on, out so what's changed, why drivers car is now, two things one if you look at the ride healing companies, they are not making money they are losing money and one of the biggest problems is they have to pay people to drive cars and that is, it a try to really crush that and squeeze the payouts. >> i just wrote here in october he only drive for that because uber kept squeezing him. as far as the autos companies are concerned you can't make money selling cars i will talk about that in just a second. they were as i said with automobile itself travelers cars in the

past when i talk about what is a driver's car is what i mean is what kind of garlic are we getting now and how is it different than what we got? i think this isn't a way to think about. it can unitarian versus libertarian. in the past, infrastructure market solutions general motors working with a government for example, now less involvement from the government, as far as driver lives the cars are concerned not building infrastructure is better for them. travelers cars were invented many times. by 1958 they were for ads for electric companies trying to keep government off the electric grid, trying to stop nuclear power from being developed the federal government so they can make money. this one on the right, if you searched on the internet to look for travelers cars,

every other article uses this image. nobody points out nobody point that work comes. from it actually comes from the electric company, it's got no connection to current travelers cars. there's a lane marker. that car is going right down the center of the lane. it's not driving between the lane so it is kind of weird. as i note, all of the silicon valley roads, who are telling us we are geniuses jobless cars are coming, many of them brands like google and others are pursuing gondolas cars it's part of the same at campaign there in pursuing travelers flying saucers they are not pursuing this is what i want. puppy in the back. groceries, moment we'll nice steering

wheel it's a flying saucer. that i want. they are two flying saucer families. this is what electricity will bring you. this is utter science fiction. this i think 50, eight is science fact. there it is. 1958. our see, a cutting edge of electronics, between sisters all that good stuff. they are test driving those. cars cars. you see the guy on your ride, he's not sitting at the steering wheel in fact there was no steering wheel there is a joystick. i'm pretty sure that's an impala 58. thank you. i was hoping it would be somebody here. don't get me started on mustang because they are terrible. driver's car. it

actually works. i'm gonna show you first i'm going to tell you why not? why wouldn't gm pursue this? gm in 1950 it was the most profitable largest company in the country company in the country. also, this was required cooperation with the people who made the roads basically the government. some of you may be familiar with a famous quote what is good for america is good for general motors and vice voices of the connection between general motors and government is very much there. so here is the way i hope this will be big enough for you, here is the way general motors also pleaded. this is a five or two there are three of them i urge you to look at fire bird two and three let's see if they will play.

wait let's see if it will play using great power in small packages -- exhaust heat is no longer a problem. though the experimental car of tomorrow as a sign section appearance it is usable in every design. even the electronic safety highways feasible for the future. here is tomorrow's driver might just push a button and the car will literally drive itself. electronic receiver will pick up a very strong impulses and really long incomplete safety and inside a car it's a screen reveals president traffic information and gives highway and weather reports. following these >> tv screen in the car, so that's that. this was quite viable i'm gonna show you the real thing now being done in 1997. this is on the call the intelligence vehicle highway system. this was considered to

be a problem was right at the end of building on the interstate highway system, was gonna have to be some kind of reauthorization were gonna build more highways, we were gonna -- we wait we can do. that let's see if we can make our existing highways more efficient how we can do that? let's squeeze more cars onto the roads and also let's reduce congestion which is caused by crashes. automated ecosystems will be able to steer around obstacles, it will be more relaxing because it will be self-driving and cars can drive inches apart. let's look at this. this is 1997, it's gonna be a chess quality and government production so take a good look it will show you to defend things. we will see a pontiac swerving it will see a

bunch of viewers behaving like -- here we are driving window hands this is pretty cool i wonder what the other traffic -- swerving no hands >> scenario visionary is demonstrate technical feasibility affairs types of automated highway technologies and now they will increase safety and decrees traffic congestion. >> several vehicles space closely together, i will show us >> okay. i find it hilarious. pontiac, so as we build excitement and then buick is there being a bullet and then it just march along. but again

it worked. it required infrastructure and it was advanced by the government. now i'm going to wrap up quickly talking about the same themes as we are not seeing with what we called libertarian or travelers car. here is elaine chao talking about travelers cars and she mixes in the metaphors here mixes a different technologies. it's a future -- traffic drastically reduced major factor 94% of all paper fatal crashes is human error. advanced driving system, this is important, advanced -- it will help we have abs maybe some of you have it on your cars emergency braking if you have the brakes in front of you, lane keeping you assist. if you

are getting out of your lane. safety. they insist the cars are fully self-driving will be next year. every year that we delay this self-driving more people die. now he was attacking journalists who are complaining about the stock. he said if in writing some article that negative view effectively this way people from using a not on that autonomy driver you are killing people. anthony levandowski who was involved in a new uber suit google, once you make a car better the driver it's almost a responsible to have a driver. >> also the founder of crews automation which is not part of general motors somebody talking -- 33,000 americans are killed

by how axis 90% of the town by human error. that makes me so mad. they want to eliminate drivers because we are bad drivers. it's not true. this is a 94% fallacy. they all read this document which says, 94% of accident accidents are caused by human, no i'm sorry, this is the critical reason critical reason for crash crashed causation survey it doesn't say who causes the crashes. you have to read footnotes. nobody reads the footnotes. although the critical reason is an important

part of the important part of the discussion of events it is not intended to be interpreted as a cause of the crash nor as the assignment of the fault of the driver, vehicle, or environment. the driver is always, i'm surprised it's not how to present the driver is always the last link in the chain. the driver can always avoid the accident. no matter how bad and intersection, we know they are banned intersections they are labeled as such, as people go through them millions of times without crashes. thousands of times without crashing. therefore, in must be my fault. it's only my fault that i could've stopped it, could've stopped it while before the way to stop it is not to get rid of me the way to fix it is to fix the road, fix the infrastructure so that we are using our vehicles last, we are driving them slower and they are safer. and the roads are safer. i think i'm almost

done. what are these drivers called, part of the reasons exist when it is their part of the defense but -- that keep sending home knows people who died in sending a priest over and it was bad. particularly,, --, here is some of the real reasons, uber hundred and 20 billion another at 68 billion there market cap yeah, the plane when he heard about

self-driving cars was we're gonna take all of that percent and we are going to keep it, take the entire fair, billions of revenue, the project code name is a dollar sign and there is a new book out i put it on a list there for you that describes that, you can't make money selling cars and auto companies the less of the cost of capital and most companies destroy value, so let me put this in a simple words, building cars is a money losing operation and, so what do car companies want to do, what is uber want to, do they want money. what does general motors want to do, general motors it's

diminished state, in other words the stock price, 47.1, hubert they lose money so they don't have fine amazon, facebook 35 so that's what they want to be, they want to have the cost of capital to go down so that they can make money the last slide i will leave with you there are no driver list cars, there are no driver list cars, this has been a real problem there was a columnist in the new york times at the automotive news who said when you're self driving car -- zone

like you can sit and let the thing go but a terrified new york times columnist accuses evolve oh, people are dying, at the first death, the death of a man, he was driving the tesla, talk about the operational domain and all of that, they studied it and they found that are calling this an autopilot is a problem, adding to the, they may include from the name and may not pay attention to the driving task and they're paying no attention and he was caught right under the back and i have a semi trailer but there

have been four of these walter and, and also a lane she was killed by hoover saw driving test car and the safety driver was paying no attention, so these things don't work and they are certainly not safe so that is what i have to show you, and i really bank, you you've been very, patient i went on very law, i could go on, forever i love this stuff but you know more than loving talking is listening so i would love to hear what you have to comment, on to say, questions you have, anything you want to know, you want to know how to change or oil or tire, i will help you, car buy in vice,,

thank you. every time they do a top -- >> the liability have they really sorted out the liability for crashes because there is a driver in the vehicle, the software was developed by somebody the vehicle itself was built by somebody so where are we at with this, with the sign of the blame. >> it's a huge question, and i will say a couple of things, one is the society of automotive engineers develop

something called the levels of drivers cars in the star with zero which is what i drive and they work their way from controlling the breaks in the gas and they say when you get to five it's -- that is not full stuff driving, when i don't have to pay car insurance in the car company pays the car insurance that is it, now what's happened recently is there is a suit out with one in china and one here where the argument is, you know they have this little thing in the manual and it says oh by the way you have to keep your hands on the wheel but there is all kinds of ways that it doesn't work and when they studied this they

sought, so far nobody seems to be holding these companies responsible, you know, yes or, do you know a time where it would be mandatory to do law -- >> i can't imagine that, i think if the argument is about safety you really have plenty of, safety systems that make driving very safe, what i can see is things like he being cars out of the city, we have pedestrians and so, forth but 10,000 of these is alcohol related death and we have a way to prevent people from driving

and drinking, but the idea that the government is gonna come in and say that is illegal i find hard to believe because the government is had every opportunity to solve these problems and quickly, the european union has just instituted a new car, they will have speed bumpers so if you are 55 or hundred-kilometer war the car won't go that, we have gps in the technology, it's not hard, so i could see that coming in but i think that is different. >> when did driver license become required? >> so it began in the thirties mostly, it's spread from denser

population states up to places like north dakota and interesting lee early on you would go to the dmv and they would say no when you get a license, so testing, driver testing did not come in really until the fifties for the most part, so very late and people drove without licenses. >> he an 1895 path and, where did they sue? >> so not to sell the book but i talk about this quite a bit, so seldom had a path in, he

then sued the man raising the car and he fought or a while and then he settled, what he settled for is one quarter percent of south and, this is interesting, he was now part of the people that were the electric vehicle company, they have bought the pad end, but another power went to something called the automobile license association members, you probably got that wrong but they were an industry group they are often referred to as patents and that's a little historiography so they have become known as patent rollers

and they eventually had most of the automakers and did a lot of good things and had 2000 different ball sizes and they consolidated, on the other and they said who could and couldn't be part of it oil and the patent fight went on for years in years and on the end they were considered valid but only valid for the particular kinds of patent, so you basically threw it out so it's a fascinating story and if you're interested in following up i'm really proud of the way they treated that but some of the stories are based on -- does that answer?

>> your presentation makes it sound like these vehicles are inevitable in the u.s., so i'm interested in your opinion about the timing, how much is it for the majority of vehicles and and thomas vehicles, virtually all vehicles are autonomous, i don't like to comment do these things right told everybody that's ever gonna happen, i do think there is that possibility, it's clear that we are fighting this much harder, and it turns out it's really hard to drive a robot car to, do so two things i would point, out i see it as a very long time before any sort

of majority, there are more cars than drivers in the country, 240 million or so, we saw all millions of new, cars 20% of cars over 18 years, old what does that mean? even if all of them are self driving tomorrow we are looking at two decades before we could all by them, the cost of these vehicles because of the sensors and commuting power is still a large and then finally -- right so they speak about edge cases, but it's all edge cases, so i see them being used on campus or small area or get around the city but i think we are a very long way from this idea that we

are outlaw driving, you know, these are great questions. we get to the point where we have an electric car and, (inaudible) >> others two possibilities for the technology that do when you say, on but you also need to be able to charge and that is a very tricky business so less than 500 miles, i think very fast charging, charging words, the weirdest thing now is okay after student wait for half an hour but what if you show up in someone is already sitting and waiting for half an, hour it's

a real problem, so i think there are solutions to that, maybe not just the 500 miles but yeah, yes. >> it seems like in your presentation we went from the advent of the car into -- the things that are happening now that there is talking between the vehicles, what do you think about that and where were going with that? >> so what you're talking about is the need to v. or v. to accept, this is something, what it means basically it's like the 1958 and paul that a shows you where the technology is very simple, it's, radios sensors and the most basic way to put it in tells them not to be in the same place at the same time, it's been, the radio spectrum to do this was i located at about 2000 or little

earlier, they're not excited about it, they say and i give you what they say, which is they don't want to get stuck with the whole technology and they want to use 5g cellular instead and they're not convinced it works, that's what they said about seatbelts, that's what they said about air bags and the safety glass and etc, so the pattern of behavior worries me, on the other hand the 5g idea tries to do the same thing, the reason they are excited about that is, once you have five tina car, all this data comes in, all this delicious data that the amazon can sell you things, i think that's what's going on but there is no reason not to have it and localities have invested, put it in traffic lights and all, that so there is all that stuff in the book. i was

reading recently that in canada there are researchers developing morality software for their cars so the carcass that if graham is riding a bicycle and a squall goes across the road that it's okay to hit this world but not the grandma do you see any challenges with developing that kind of technology, it's an excellent question and i love this par so i argue that that is totally easing a conversation so in other words what they try to say is the automobile, the driver in this

car is a new kind of morality, it enters a space that is going to force it to make decisions that human beings make now, the reality is it doesn't have any clue what's in the road or who is driving but there has been a lot of coverage of that and i called the a morality robot cars, and plus one .com, there is already a tomorrow framework in the automobile driver road system, for example traffic engineers don't think about safety and then mobility, they think about mobility and then safety, that's a moral choice,

i think other than the fact that the philosophers are trying to make a living ale it's an absurd conversation, i will read you very quickly, in some level the useful exercise because you have these kids in college running the program and they should think about this stuff but, there is this guy linen and he has written a bunch of things, computers can decide who lives and dies in a driver's car, here's a terrible idea, robot cars and adjustable -- but here's the real problem but it's a scenario where the car is following a strong and boxes fall and showed he swerve right or left so very quickly consider the problem of a car barreling down a street where the car should swerve last to

avoid the kid or risk -- i am imagine the colder is and we want the colder is and i hope you know python code here if -- line print we are sorry for your loss olds call and porch and ensures you write the real question is now which way should the porch turn but why is there a portion going so fast in the first place it should not be in that situation and mansion abe tailgating a track that drops boxes that is the promise of the driver and as they said i'm happy to take more questions to wrap up but

thank you so much for coming out. (applause)

it was a century ago that a u.s. army convoy of about 80 vehicles made its way from washington d.c. to san francisco, this picture depicting exactly what happened, to inspect americas roads and a map showcasing the journey from washington d.c. to san francisco, adjourning documented in a silent film that we will be showing in just a moment, but first joining us is ambassador michael owen, the author of