🟥 POLICING & LAW ENFORCEMENT HISTORY IN THE BRITISH ISLES

On 28th January 1896 Mr Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent, became the first person to be caught speeding in a motorised vehicle. Mr Arnold was spotted doing a heady 8mph, four times the 2mph speed limit, and was pursued for 5 miles by a policeman on a bicycle...

Walter Arnold was no ordinary motorist. He was also one of the earliest car dealers in the country and the local supplier for Benz vehicles. He was well ahead of the times and set up his own car company producing “Arnold” motor carriages at the same time. It has to be said that the subsequent publicity surrounding his speeding offence probably wasn’t entirely unwelcome, and it was certainly a game changer for the automobile.

The London Daily News detailed the four counts, also known as “informations”, on which Walter Arnold faced charges at Tunbridge Wells court. Arnold’s vehicle was described several times in the newspaper court report as a “horseless carriage”, and the case clearly raised some interesting philosophical as well as legal points for the bench.

The first count, which reads oddly now, was for using a “locomotive without a horse,” the next for having fewer than three persons “in charge of the same”, indicating the enduring influence of horse-drawn and steam locomotion when it came to legislating the new vehicles. Next came the actual speeding charge, for driving at more than two miles per hour, and finally, a charge for not having his name and address on the vehicle.

In defence, Arnold’s barrister stated that the existing locomotive acts had not foreseen this type of vehicle, throwing in the names of a couple of elite users, Sir David Salmons and the Hon. Evelyn Ellis, who had never had any problems while out and about in theirs. Whether this was intended to impress the court or to make some point about one law for the rich and another for the man in the street is not entirely clear.

Since this was a case that would set a precedent, referencing names of people who were in the public eye would avoid the problem that has become a by-word for judges who are out of touch – the “who he?” reaction.

Mr Cripps, defending, said that if the Bench considered the vehicle was a locomotive, therefore presumably legislating it within existing acts, they should charge a nominal fine. Eventually, Mr Arnold was fined 5 shillings for the first count of “using a carriage without a locomotive horse” (aka “horseless carriage”) plus £2.0s.11d costs. On each of the other counts, he was to pay 1 shilling fine and 9 shillings costs. Effectively then, his speeding offence cost him a shilling. All in all, the publicity it created may have made it worth it.

The case may have had an influence on the changes to legislation shortly afterwards. The man with the red flag was no longer required, presumably leading to labour exchange staff scratching their heads over what to do with a skill that clearly wasn’t that transferable. The fearsome machines no longer needed a minimum of three people to control them.