<P> It was not until the 18th century that steering systems were truly improved . Erasmus Darwin was a young English doctor who was driving a carriage about 10,000 miles a year to visit patients all over England . Darwin found two essential problems or shortcomings of the commonly used light carriage or Hungarian carriage . First, the front wheels were turned by a pivoting front axle, which had been used for years, but these wheels were often quite small and hence the rider, carriage and horse felt the brunt of every bump on the road . Secondly, he recognized the danger of overturning . </P> <P> A pivoting front axle changes a carriage's base from a rectangle to a triangle because the wheel on the inside of the turn is able to turn more sharply than the outside front wheel . Darwin proposed to fix these insufficiencies by proposing a principle in which the two front wheels turn about a centre that lies on the extended line of the back axle . This idea was later patented as Ackerman Steering . Darwin argued that carriages would then be easier to pull and less likely to overturn . </P> <P> Carriage use in North America came with the establishment of European settlers . Early colonial horse tracks quickly grew into roads especially as the colonists extended their territories southwest . Colonists began using carts as these roads and trading increased between the north and south . Eventually, carriages or coaches were sought to transport goods as well as people . As in Europe, chariots, coaches and / or carriages were a mark of status . The tobacco planters of the South were some of the first Americans to use the carriage as a form of human transportation . As the tobacco farming industry grew in the southern colonies so did the frequency of carriages, coaches and wagons . Upon the turn of the 18th century wheeled vehicle use in the colonies was at an all - time high . Carriages, coaches and wagons were being taxed based on the number of wheels they had . These taxes were implemented in the South primarily as the South had superior numbers of horses and wheeled vehicles when compared to the North . Europe, however, still used carriage transportation far more often and on a much larger scale than anywhere else in the world . </P> <P> Carriages and coaches began to disappear as use of steam propulsion began to generate more and more interest and research . Steam power quickly won the battle against animal power as is evident by a newspaper article written in England in 1895 entitled "Horseflesh vs. Steam". The article highlights the death of the carriage as the means of transportation . </P>

When was the first horse and cart used