Walter Arnold was one of the UK's first car dealers. He imported a German–made Benz car in 1895, and on 28 January 1896 he was observed by a local policeman driving it through the town of Paddock Wood (now in the Borough of Tunbridge Wells), in Kent, at a reported speed of 8 mph. The speed limit at the time (as legislated by the second Locomotive Act in 1875) was 4 mph on country roads and 2 mph in a built–up area.
According to later reports, the policeman chased the vehicle on his bicycle – although Snopes.com ("the internet's [self–proclaimed] definitive fact–checking resource") was unable to verify this, or the actual speed at which Arnold was travelling. But Guinness World Records does record that Arnold was charged with four offences (using a locomotive without a horse on a public road, allowing said locomotive to be operated by fewer than three persons, travelling at a greater rate than two miles per hour, and failing to clearly display his name and address on the locomotive). He was brought before a local magistrate on 30 January, when he pleaded not guilty on the grounds that the relevant laws were not drawn up with motor vehicles in mind, and therefore did not apply. The magistrate disagreed however, and found Arnold guilty on all four counts. He was fined £4 7s in total (about £260 in today's money) of which 10 shillings was for the speeding charge.
Snopes also mentions that a few days earlier (on 23 January 1896) the Glasgow Herald had reported that "At the Central Police Court yesterday ... George Johnston ... was charged with having contravened the Locomotives Amendment Act, 1878 ... in so far as he, being in charge of a locomotive propelled by steam, oil or other than animal power, and designated a horseless carriage, did, on 4th January, between 4 and 5pm, drive the locomotive along Buchanan Street, St. Enoch Square and Dixon Street, being highways along which locomotives are prohibited to pass between 9am and 5pm, whereby he was liable to a penalty of £5, or one month's imprisonment." But Johnston was not specifically charged with speeding, so Walter Arnold was the first to be charged with that offence (and found guilty of it).
It has been suggested that Arnold deliberately got caught exceeding the speed limit, in order to publicise his business. We shall probably never know whether this is true or not; but it has also been suggested that it was at least partly as a consequence of his case that Parliament voted later that year to increase the speed limit to 14 mph. The Locomotive Act of 1896 also removed the need for an escort (with the red flag), and the original London to Brighton Run, styled at that time as the Emancipation Run, took place in the same year in celebration.
© Haydn Thompson 2023