Commemorating the First Auto Accident on Memorial Day Weekend
By USABR.
Memorial weekend is known for lots of car traveling and the Indianapolis 500. These, in turn remind us of the many accidents that can take place during this time.
Sunday, May 28th. The first recorded automobile accident in the U.S. involving two vehicles occurred on this date in 1896 in New York City. Henry Wells of Springfield, Massachusetts, was driving a new Duryea Motor Wagon, the first automobile model to be made and sold in the U.S. Unfortunately, he collided with Evelyn Thomas of New York, riding a bicycle. Thomas went to the hospital with a broken leg, and Wells spent the night in jail. Now, there are close to 6.3 million motor vehicle accidents reported to police per year, with over 35,000 of them fatal crashes. There are nearly 33,000 insurance carriers in the U.S., with auto insurance premiums adding to the industry’s $1.7 trillion of annual business. You can find current data on the country’s economy by downloading the ‘America’s Economy’ mobile application at www.census.gov/mobile.
Sources:
Duryea Motor Wagon/accessed 2/23/2017: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-06-16/travel/9606180315_1_auto-industry-tailpipe-emissions-duryea-motor-wagon
Accident/accessed 2/23/2017: https://wanderingbrooklyn.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/strange-but-true-the-first-car-accident-in-u-s-was-in-nyc-and-it-involved-a-bicycle/
Fatal crashes/page 6/accessed 2/19/2016: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812318
Accidents and cyclist deaths/accessed 2/19/2016: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812234.pdf
Insurance carriers /County Business Patterns/NAICS 5241: https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/BP/2014/00A1//naics~5241
Insurance revenues/Economic Census/NAICS 5241:
https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ECN/2012_US/00CCOMP1//naics~5241
Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotion of the U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics and accounts drawn from cited non-Census sources are employed for illustrative or narrative purposes, and are not attested to by the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for “Audio” in the “Library” pull-down menu).
