In 1908 Ford had changed the game with the first mass production car in the United States, and still today the automobile sits close to the center of the daily lives of many Americans. Since that time it has remained the main way to travel across the country and with around 100 years of use from 1920 to today, the automobile has gone through a fair share of changes. The automobile has adapted to many new innovations in technology, many new ways for the automobile to be used, thousands of American regulations, many changes in safety, and created one of the largest manufacturing battles on the planet. These changes are not entirely clean as there was still some continuity in the technology, laws, and safety in the automobile. Firstly, the technology of the automobile has greatly changed from 1920 to today. The advancements in technology have had effects on how automobiles drive, look, and function. Some of the components are Anti-lock brakes, Traction Control, digital dashboards, and many more. These components seem standard today however features such as air conditioning was first added to cars until 1939 (Great Achievements). All of these components however are fairly heavy and add weight to the car. For example an average Ford Model T weighed 1200 to 1500 pounds. (Barefoot). Today cars such as a 2017 Ford Focus RS weighs close to two tons …show more content…
The existence of speed limits, and other road signs have always been around and have set the foundation to other types of rules of the road today. While it is true no major safety or environmental regulations were enforced until the 1950’s and 1960’s they did still exist on a small scale. An example for safety is how smaller drivers ed courses began to emerge around the 1930’s (Melosi). Also a few environmental pushed had been made during the 1940’s and went unnoticed until the environmental movement of the