it seems that they've modeled horse-drawn wagons after seeing them in the first sequences, but why are there no random ones along the roads? i see random hunters and NPCs on horseback but never any wagons...

YEAH WUT THE HELL, BETH!

ITS JUST AMINATING A KART! WEEL GOS ROUND, BETH! HORSES!

WORST GAME EVER!

Watch the making of Skyrim and you will see why.

I'm going to guess it;s because of technology reasons....

Good guess, but no. It's clearly because cliff racers also pushed the cart population to near extinction, along with the dragons. The carts we see today, are the last survivors of the masacare.

Thanks for telling me. In the next game there should be a quest line where you will revive the mystical cart race..

I guess you could say that, lets just say the cart we are on at the start of the game had a moment where it flew higher than when a giant clubs a bandit to death. That cart was scripted, imagine random unscripted carts on the roads of skyrim...

Judging by the number of overturned carts scattered in shambles all over Skyrim's roads, I'd say the Nords aren't exactly what you'd call exceptional cart-makers...

Actually, it's probably the Nords who overturned them in the first place... after all, Skyrim is for the Nords! or so they say...