Before 1903, there was no driver's license in America. No test. No minimum age. No speed limit. No stop signs. No traffic lights. If you could get your hands on a car, you could drive it — no questions asked. A twelve-year-old could do it. Someone who had never touched a steering wheel could barrel into a crowded intersection full of children, pedestrians, and horse-drawn carriages. And that's exactly what happened. The result was carnage on a scale most people today can't imagine — over 200,000 Americans killed by cars in the 1920s alone.
But what's even more shocking is how long it took to fix it. The first licenses required no test whatsoever. Most states didn't require driving exams until the 1950s. South Dakota didn't require a license at all until 1954. And the reason it took so long wasn't just bureaucratic slowness — it was deliberate. The auto industry launched one of the most effective propaganda campaigns in history, inventing the concept of "jaywalking" to shift blame from drivers to pedestrians and protect their product from regulation.
This is the untold story of how America's streets were stolen from the people who walked them, how corporate money delayed life-saving regulations for half a century, and why we're still living with the consequences today.
https://youtu.be/Wf1aPrqPuUE?si=Bsn8Gbifkdj06B3U