Earlier quoted context omitted.
> was the apparent benefit so incredibly variable? Yes, lots of people were very vocally against horseless-carriages, as they were called at the time. Safety and public nuisance concerns were widespread, the cars were very noisy, fast, smoky and unreliable. Old newspapers are filled with opinions about this, from people being afraid of horseless-carriages spooking other's horses and so on. The UK restricted the adopt…
yeah I agree about the negative externalities but I'm curious about the perceived benefits. did anybody argue that cars were actually slower than horse and carriage? (were they at first?)
The cars were obviously faster than the typical horse transportation and I don't think anyone tried to argue against that, but laws typically restricted cars so they couldn't go faster than horses, at least in highly populated areas like cities. As others mentioned too, the benefit of not needing roads to go places were highlighted as a drawback of cars too. People argued that while cars might go faster, the result would be that the world would be worse off in total.