Walter Arnold was racing his horseless vehicle at 8 miles per hour, for which a hefty fine was imposed on him, including 10 shillings as the speeding charge.
On January 28, 1896, a motorist named Walter Arnold hopped into his horseless carriage and drove toward the village of Paddock Wood in Kent, England. Amid the hissing of the stroke engine and clanging of the brass fuel tank and throttle, the vehicle was galloping at 8 miles per hour (mph), almost four times the legal speed limit.
Before long, he noticed a police officer chasing him on a bicycle. The police on the beat succeeded in catching Arnold after five miles, unaware that he was about to add Arnold’s name to the record books, per @LFBGreenwich on X. This haphazard encounter made Arnold the world’s first person to be caught speeding in a motorized vehicle.
In a recent Reddit post, u/Ok-Structure-7996 shared a photograph of Arnold perched on his epic horseless vehicle, dressed in an English-style outfit. The law at that time typically issued a speeding ticket when a vehicle exceeded 4 mph in the countryside and 2 mph in urban areas, HistoryPod explains in a video. Arnold had outstripped this limit.
#OnThisDay 1896 Walter Arnold of Kent was the first British motorist to receive a speeding fine for exceeding 2 mph in a built-up area by doing 8 mph.
— LFB Greenwich (@LFBGreenwich) January 28, 2018
The constable gave chase on his bike & after a 5 mile chase Mr Arnold was arrested & fined
It's 2018#speedkills#SlowDown pic.twitter.com/BJyqR0mZKj
Besides speeding, the police officer on a bicycle charged him with breaking the law on three other counts, according to the Guinness World Records. These include "using a locomotive without a horse on a public road," operating the vehicle "by fewer than three persons," and failing to "display his name and address" on it. Two days after receiving the speeding ticket, Arnold was brought before a magistrate who imposed a fine of £47 ($57), equivalent to £260 ($320) today. Of this fine, 10 shillings were allocated for the speeding charge.
Arnold was born in East Peckham as the son of a businessman named William Arnold, who started an agricultural engineering company in 1844. On a trip to Germany, Arnold came across the Benz Velo and was instantly captivated by the vehicle, as reported by Kent Online. Inspired by its design, he launched his version of the Benz. After navigating a flurry of legal formalities and procedures, Arnold obtained a license to build Benz cars in 1895, according to Britain by Car. Eventually, a new company called the Arnold Motor Carriage Company emerged.
This week in 1896 driver Walter Arnold received Britain's first speeding ticket. He had been caught in a Motor Carriage like this going four times the speed limit - at 8mph. He was chased and pulled over by a policeman on a bicycle. pic.twitter.com/IaZXTUqNPX
— Dan Snow (@thehistoryguy) January 27, 2019
Over 6,400 people upvoted the Reddit post and hundreds of people responded with comments. Describing Arnold’s expression in the photograph, u/Snellyman wrote, “You can see the demonic need for speed in his petrol-dazed eyes.” u/GarysCrispLettuce said, “I'm surprised his organs didn't liquefy at that speed.”
u/raisedbypoubelle noted, “That’s equivalent to £170 ($209) today. Nothing to sneeze at!”
Several people speculated about imaginary, and some hilarious, scenarios regarding the entire Arnold-getting-speeding-ticket story. “How…did they know he was doing 8mph? Was there some sort of Flinstone-Esq gadget that’s powered by dinosaurs or something they used to measure the speed,” commented u/GeraldByTheRiver. u/AlieninOrigin wondered, “At that crazy speed, how did they catch him?” u/old_mcfartigan joked, "How did they know how fast he was going? They didn’t have police radars then. I’d fight it in court!"