A car mastering sharp turns along the Šturec mountain pass in northern Slovakia in the 1920s. (source: Liptov Museum)
The first cars appeared in Liptov (the area ranging from east of Ružomberok to east of Poprad) around the start of the 20th century, but the first road-traffic code was published here as early as 1871, allegedly due to busier traffic in this northern region.
In 1914, about 470 cars were registered in the territory of today’s Slovakia, and we can assume that several dozens of them might have been driven on Liptov’s roads at the time. Even this number, negligible by today’s standards, was enough for chroniclers to record the first road accident, which occurred on May 6, 1907, by a landowner from Spišský Hrhov named Vidor Csáki, who was driving a passenger car.
A bit later, in the 1930s, cars were no longer such a big attraction, and they were used for much more prosaic activities than being paraded in front of astonished town and village locals or for driving in dangerous daredevil races.
In Liptovský Mikuláš, the local municipal office had one car at its disposal and its own driver, Matej Klimo. In the summer, Klimo would sprinkle water on the town’s streets to prevent them from being dusty, while in winter he would remove the snow from the roads.
A series of postcards depicting a passenger car mastering sharp turns along the Šturec mountain pass was issued in the early 1920s by the Ružomberok-based company Fatra Garage. The company provided bus transport between Dolný Kubín, Ružomberok and Banská Bystrica, and the postcards were probably used for advertising.
This story was first published by The Slovak Spectator on April 7, 2014. We have updated the piece to keep it relevant for today.
