History
The first speed limit legislation was created in the United Kingdom with the Locomotive Acts (automobiles were in those days termed “light locomotives”). The 1865 Act introduced a UK speed limit of 10 mph (16 km/h) which was then reduced to 4 mph (6 km/h) in rural areas, and 2 mph (3 km/h) in towns by the 1865 Act (the 'red flag act'). The first person to be convicted of speeding is believed to be Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent, who on 28 January 1896 was fined for speeding at 8 mph (13 km/h). He was fined 1 shilling plus costs. Passage of the Locomotives on Highways Act 1896, which raised the speed limit to a "furious" pace of 14 mph is celebrated to this day by the annual London to Brighton Veteran Car Run.
Read more about this topic: Speed Limit
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of medicine is the history of the unusual.”
—Robert M. Fresco, and Jack Arnold. Prof. Gerald Deemer (Leo G. Carroll)
“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)