Today’s object was a delivery van. Vans come from the word “caravan,” shortened down over time. It started with the old wagon trains pulled by horses.
The first motorized delivery wagons showed up in 1899 when somebody decided to put a motor on a wagon and test it against horses. It carried mail twenty-two miles in a third of the time a horse did, and that was enough to make the switch. By the 1910s, motorized vans had mostly replaced horses in the big cities.
By 1929, Twin Coach had built a stand-up delivery model for milkmen and icemen. The driver could set the clutch and let it move just a few inches at a time, slow like a horse, so he could walk beside it and make deliveries. It worked the same way milkmen used to walk alongside their horses. In the 1950s came ice cream trucks, then food trucks, what some folks called “gut trucks.” They were just modified delivery vans with refrigeration. The food truck industry now brings in about a billion and a half dollars a year in the United States.
I talked about how the delivery van industry itself is worth around four hundred sixty billion dollars. My mom mentioned they’re shrinking them down now to make it easier to drive through neighborhoods. Electric vans make sense in town, clean and quiet for short routes. I haven’t noticed them getting smaller myself. I keep seeing bigger ones.
The new trend is self-driving delivery trucks. They send text messages to tell you your package is on the way. Everything’s automated. I’m not sure how I feel about it. Part of me likes the idea of sitting back and letting the car drive while I play with my family, but I don’t like the idea of giving control to the machines. Isaac Asimov wrote plenty about that, and we’ve all seen the Terminator movies. It sure is nice, though, when technology works the way it’s supposed to.
People talk about progress like it’s always the goal, but every step forward changes what we give up. I figure as long as people are still the ones controlling the AI, we’re all right. The minute we hand everything over, it gets messy. Machines don’t understand humor, sarcasm, or kindness. Still, it’s something to think about, because the future’s already rolling down the street.
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Also, if you, or a teacher friend, would like a 20-30 minute lesson plan about delivery vans, feel free to download and share this one:
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