Arnold Benz Motor Carriage 1896

This is the first car to have ever received a speeding ticket.

The driver, Walter Arnold from East Peckham, London was arrested on the 28th January 1896 for driving at four times the speed limit after being chased down by a police officer on a bicycle.

At the time, cars were strictly forbidden to go more than two miles an hour and had to follow a man on foot waving a red flag but Mr Arnold decided to throw caution to the wind and zoomed around the Kent countryside at a heady 8mph before being spotted. He was convicted of speeding and fined a shilling plus costs in what is believed to be the world’s first speeding conviction.

Mr Arnold may not have been too unhappy with the publicity his case generated however as he was one of the country’s first car dealers, selling imported Benz cars from Germany. And between 1896 and 1899 his company made its own cars, the ‘Arnold Motor Carriage’, based on the Benz.

Later that year, the Locomotives Act removed the need for a flag-bearer and increased the speed limit to a hair-raising 14mph. To celebrate, a race from London to Brighton was organised and undeterred, Walter Arnold took part, driving one of his own cars. The same classic rally takes place to this day in the form of the famed Royal Automobile Club’s Veteran Car Run. The event is open to pre-1905 motor cars and held annually on the first Sunday in the month of November.

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