High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A hansom cab is a kind of horse-drawn carriage designed and patented in 1834 by Joseph Hansom, an architect from York. The vehicle was developed and tested by Hansom in Hinckley, Leicestershire, England. Originally known as the Hansom safety cab, its purpose was to combine speed with safety, with a low centre of gravity that was essential for safe cornering. Hansom's original design was heavily altered by John Chapman to improve its practicability, but retained Hansom's name. Cab is a shortening of cabriolet, reflecting the design of the carriage. It replaced the hackney carriage as a vehicle for hire; with the introduction of clockwork mechanical taximeters to measure fares, the name became taxicab. Hansom cabs enjoyed immense popularity as they were fast, light enough to be pulled by a single horse (making the journey cheaper than travelling in a larger four-wheel coach) and were agile enough to steer around horse-drawn vehicles in the notorious traffic jams of nineteenth- century London. They were always seen as rather 'racy' and were not used by respectable ladies on their own.

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