A DUBIOUS ANNIVERSARY

BY DAN MILLER
(originally posted September 13, 2005)

The man pictured here was the first to do what almost 43,000 people did in the U. S. last year, but he did it more than a century ago.

His name was Henry Bliss.
On September 13, 1899, Henry became the first person to be killed in a traffic accident in the United States.

On that warm September day, Henry -- who was 68 years old -- stepped off a New York City streetcar, only to be struck and crushed by an electric powered automobile.

In 1999 -- at the site of the accident -- a historical plaque was unveiled, recognizing Henry's "accomplishment". It reads:

Here at West 74th Street and Central Park West, Henry H. Bliss dismounted from a streetcar and was struck and knocked unconscious by an automobile on the evening of September 13, 1899. When Mr. Bliss, a New York real estate man, died the next morning from his injuries, he became the first recorded motor vehicle fatality in the Western Hemisphere. This sign was erected to remember Mr. Bliss on the centennial of his untimely death and to promote safety on our streets and highways.

Even though it happened so long ago..... when there were few automobiles around..... it is eerily unsurprising that it was a New York City taxicab that struck Henry.

By the way, Henry Bliss was not the world's first traffic fatality.
That had happened 3 years earlier in London when Bridget Driscoll was struck by a demonstration car traveling at the unheard of speed of 4.5 miles per hour.
Driscoll's death was ruled accidental.... and, the coroner -- referring to a fatality being caused by an automobile -- declared, "This must never happen again".

He could never have imagined what the future held in store.

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