I never thought of conjoined twins in the sense of bicycles. Then, a week or so ago, I chanced across something about Henry Ford\’s quadricycle. It used bicycle wheels!

This was the first gas-powered vehicle invented by Mr. Ford. He sold his first \”quad\” for $200, which seems incredibly cheap by our standards. This, however, was is 1896. In today\’s money, that would be over $6K. You could buy a really good road bike for that price, and forget about gasoline. Or two people could buy one $3K bike each, and they could find a way to join them side-by-side; and then they could ride together — they\’d be \”conjoined twins\”.

Something I\’d like to know is: if Henry Ford could have foreseen the impact that the internal combustion engine would have on the world, would he have worked so hard to develop it?

I know that trucking gets the merchandise that we take for granted to the stores, so we need trucks. We need emergency vehicles; an ambulance can mean the difference between life and death for someone who is injured or very ill.

Unfortunately the use of private vehicles has had severe effects on the environment, and the USA is not alone in this. There\’s also the negative impact that overuse of private vehicles has on health. All those exhaust fumes can cause serious problems for people who have respiratory issues. The obesity crisis has been blamed, at least in part, on cars.

You might even say that the internal combustion engine has birthed the \”conjoined twins\” of the environmental crisis, and the health crisis!