Henry Hale Bliss (June 13, 1830 – September 14, 1899) was the first person killed by a motor vehicle accident in the United States, and the first known in the Americas. On September 13, 1899 he was disembarking from a streetcar at West 74th Street and Central Park West in New York City, when an electric-powered taxicab (Automobile No. 43) struck him and crushed his head and chest. He died from his injuries the next morning.
Arthur Smith, the driv...
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Henry Hale Bliss (June 13, 1830 – September 14, 1899) was the first person killed by a motor vehicle accident in the United States, and the first known in the Americas. On September 13, 1899 he was disembarking from a streetcar at West 74th Street and Central Park West in New York City, when an electric-powered taxicab (Automobile No. 43) struck him and crushed his head and chest. He died from his injuries the next morning.
Arthur Smith, the driver of the taxicab, was arrested and charged with manslaughter but was acquitted on the grounds that it was unintentional. The passenger, Dr. David Edson, was the son of former New York City mayor Franklin Edson.
A plaque was dedicated at the site on September 13, 1999, to commemorate this event. It reads:
Bliss's death is often stated to have been the first recorded vehicle-related fatality in the "Western Hemisphere". However, the Western Hemisphere actually includes all land of the hemisphere west of Greenwich, and there were two earlier...
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