Automobiles were considered unacceptably dangerous in many places when they were actually released. Towns had ordinances banning them. There was a bunch of lo

Automobiles were considered unacceptably dangerous in many places when they were actually released. Towns had ordinances banning them. There was a bunch of lobbying and counter-lobbying. They gained a foothold in some places first, then the benefits became more apparent to others. There was a _lot_ of advertising on the part of car companies. Slowly car ownership spread and became more accepted, and in parallel systems were put in place to make cars safer. The whole process took many decades. Of course I agree that overall societal risk tolerance was to a large extent higher 110 years ago and at least in the US the central government was a lot less powerful. The same process would not proceed in exactly the same way today, though I see some parallels in how self-driving cars are being slowly introduced.