Curious piece of Swiss history. The war on cars was quite active 126 years ago:
It all ended at the cantonal border. Instead of stepping on the accelerator, drivers had to watch as two strong oxen or horses were harnessed in front of their vehicle. Only as a team were they allowed to head for their destination in canton Graubünden.
What sounds like a scene from a bizarre comedy was a reality between 1900 and 1925 in Switzerland’s largest holiday region. While the rest of Europe was already revelling in the thrill of speed, the voters of Graubünden stubbornly stuck to a total ban on cars – and made Graubünden a “European one-off”.
It all began on August 17, 1900, when, following numerous complaints about the “smelly and noisy monsters”, the cantonal government decided without further ado to ban cars on all roads.
The reasons for this resistance were as varied as the canton’s 150 valleys. On the one hand, there were tangible safety concerns: the narrow, unpaved gravel roads were built for stagecoaches and carts.
The much faster cars, on the other hand, kicked up enormous clouds of dust and frightened the horses, which could be life-threatening on the narrow mountain paths.
However, the concern about safety also concealed a social conflict. At the time, the car was seen purely as a “show-off vehicle” and a toy for the wealthy urban upper class.
The local farming community couldn’t see why they should pay for the expensive upkeep of the roads only to be covered in clouds of dust by wealthy tourists.
In addition, the local hauliers feared for their livelihoods. And the Rhaetian Railway, in which the canton had invested a lot of money and which had been in operation since 1889, didn’t want any unwelcome competition on the roads.
This led to absurd scenes on the roads of Graubünden. The German entrepreneur Karl August Lingner, inventor of Odol mouthwash, owned Tarasp Castle in the Lower Engadine at the time. He had to have his limousine pulled by horses from the cantonal border to his property – he was allowed to start the engine only on his own private property.
Wait a min…show off vehicles, Autoposers. I’ve heard more than once about that. Ahhh, there’s a long history:
