On this day in 1886, the first motor car was driven in Germany by Karl Benz. With more than a billion cars in the world now, it is hard to imagine what it was like in 1886. Life followed a simpler pattern. This meant that people had more time - for helping and understanding each other. On the other hand, travel was much more tiring and emergency services - police, ambulance and fire brigade were less reliable. Driving a motor car is putting oneself inside a steel carapace and cutting oneself off from other people. However useful a motor car may be, it does not contribute much to general understanding and communication between people. Today's poem, The Lady of the Motor Car by Henry Lawson, has a flavour of that. Though written roughly one hundred years ago, it could apply to people today: