What You Should Know About The World’s First Car Accident

In 1891, in Ohio City, Ohio, the world’s first car accident occurred.

The city of Detroit, Michigan, was synonymous with American automobile production for the majority of the twentieth century. That was not the situation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Instead, Ohio entrepreneurs in Cleveland and other parts of the state were at the forefront of this new mode of transportation.

Because of Ohio’s early importance in the automobile industry, the state has seen a number of firsts in the industry.

The first vehicle accident was one of these firsts.

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Portrait of John W. Lambert and view of Lambert and two passengers posing in a Lambert car. Handwritten on front: “J.W. Lambert, 1909. Buckeye Mfg. Co. J.H. [undecipherable], 1908. J.H.C. in Lambert friction drive en route to Bay City. 30 + 3 clincher tires. Removable toneau [sic].” Handwritten on back: “Lambert, John W.”

In 1891 the world’s first car accident occurred in Ohio City, Ohio, with James William Lambert as the driver and James Swoveland as the passenger.

Lambert’s car, the first single-cylinder gasoline automobile, lost control and collided with a tree root, causing the car to careen out of control and crash into a hitching post.

There were no major injuries as the car didn’t have the power to speed.

This gave Lambert some ideas to implement some safety procedures such as putting doors on cars.

Lambert went on to patent over 600 ideas, the most of which were related to the automobile industry.

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