Why did it take us so long to put wheels on our luggage?

[NightWatcher]

I'm 40 and I remember being a kid and having to carry a huge Samsonite suitcase that you had wrestle to get into the trunk anytime we traveled. We could pack a week's worth into that behemoth.

We put a man on the Moon before I was born but we've only recently put wheels on all of our luggage.

While we are moving forward technologically in leaps and bounds have we missed other simple things to make our lives easier?

[rug]

1. It took a while to beat the gorillas back.

[geardaddy]

2. That's what I was thinking!

[rug]

3. Heh, we're both in the right place.

[Wounded Bear]

4. Probably because we didn't have carry it as much...

or as far.

[IronLionZion]

5. Less travel back then

It was expensive so wealthy people would travel in style and paid other people to carry their luggage.

Wheels are for normal people who carry our own luggage.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. A guy invented one version in 1970

but it never caught on. In 1987 an airline pilot came up with a prototype for the Rollaboard, which is what everybody uses now. Flight attendants started using them and the public saw them in airports being used by flight crews. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/business/05road.html The likely reason for their success seems to be the increase in air travel, which requires you to carry your own luggage through airports (flight crews call it the bag drag).

[pinboy3niner]

11. That history is what I remember

We'd be humping our bags and see flightcrews rolling past us in the airport. The slow penetration to the public may have been just because luggage doesn't wear out for a long time and we had no reason to shop around to replace it.

Still, wheeled luggage became common decades ago. Thank God!

[vanlassie]

7. Well I for one think the wheels are crappy cause

they break and you can't replace them. ....Hmmpf.

[doc03]

12. I just got a new suitcase last week, that is what I was thinking. I think the

baggage handlers would get off on breaking those 4 spinner wheels. I found one with 2 recessed wheels like my old one had I think it will hold up better.

[vanlassie]

14. I'm pretty sure they did break mine after I had been forced to pay 50 dollars extra cause it was

slightly overweight. Talk about adding insult to injury. Grrrr it was new.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. I'm so glad we have luggage with wheels!

My life traveling is sooooooooo much easier that way.

I will not buy any luggage that doesn't have wheels.

[AgadorSparticus]

9. Thankfully, I can't remember life before wheels on my suitcases

[BlueSpot]

10. It made a big difference when they put the wheels on the short side

When they put the wheels on the short end, reinforced the back and added the retractable handle, it all became good. There were growing pains before then.

The early ones put the wheels on the bottom (long side) and then just added a little tether for towing. With the wheels on the long side, if you didn't perfectly balance the suitcase when you were packing, you'd only go a few feet before the whole thing tipped over. So you had to walk alongside it, stooped over so you could hold the handle, and just sort of guide it along. It was slower to move that way so, as often as not, you'd just pick the damn thing up so you could walk instead of nursing it along. The solution seems obvious now. Back then it was a good idea that just didn't really work.

[pinboy3niner]

13. Inventors couldn't handle the carrion smell?