Year: Day to Day Men: January 28
Skin and Fur
January 28th in 1896 was the day upon which the first person was charged with a speeding offense in the United Kingdom.
On the twenty-eighth of January in 1896, Walter Arnold drove his horseless carriage, a German-made Benz that he had imported to Britain the previous year, through the village of Paddock Wood, Kent, at more than four times the legal speed limit, a reckless thirteen kilometers per hour (eight miles per hour). A local constable on his regulation issue bicycle succeeded in catching him after a five kilometers pursuit (three miles).
The officer charged Arnold with four counts of breaking the law: using a locomotive without a horse on a public road, allowing said locomotive to be operated by fewer than three persons, traveling at a greater rate than three kilometers per hour (2 mph), and failing to display his name and address on the locomotive.
Walter Arnold appeared before a local magistrate on the thirtieth of January in 1896. In his defense, Arnold’s barrister Mr. Cripps stated that existing locomotive laws had not foreseen the type of vehicle Arnold was driving and mentioned several users of that type of vehicle including Sir David Salmons and the Honorable Evelyn Ellis, who were never charged when driving their vehicles. Cripps added that if the Bench considered the vehicle a locomotive within the existing acts, consideration should be given for a nominal fine.
Walter Arnold was found guilty on all four counts. He was fined 5 shillings for the first count, using a carriage without a locomotive horse, plus £2.0s.11d costs. On each of the other counts, Arnold was to pay 1 shilling fine and 9 shillings costs.
It should be noted that Arnold’s daredevil ride down Paddock Wood’s High Street could have been a publicity stunt. He was one of the earliest car dealers in the country and the local supplier for Benz vehicles. Arnold had set his own car company to begin providing a locally built variant of the Benz design. Marketing of the Arnold Motor Carriage began a few months after the incident.