A Speeding Ticket

In this episode, A Speeding Ticket . . .

This week I wanted to share an exciting bit of trivia from one of my online subscription newsletters, Interesting Facts that you might enjoy. Have you ever gotten a speeding ticket? Did you know that the first-ever speeding ticket was issued to a driver going 8 miles an hour?

Walter Arnold probably didn’t think he’d be making history when he took his “horseless carriage” for a spin through the humble English village of Paddock Wood in the borough of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England, on January 28, 1896. But make history he did — by traveling at a blinding pace of 8 miles per hour on the main thoroughfare. And while you may find it difficult to believe that a bicycle-riding constable was able to catch up to him, the low-speed pursuit led to Arnold paying the first-ever speeding ticket.

The story has it, speeding wasn’t all he was charged with. Arnold was cited on four accounts: using a “locomotive without a horse” (the nerve!) and on a public road, operating said contraption with fewer than three people, failing to display his name and address on that absolute manifestation of speed, and, finally, traveling at a higher velocity than 2 miles per hour.

Arnold, one of England’s first car dealers, was driving a Benz that fateful day and paid more than $300 in today’s money for his quartette of criminality. However, a few months later, he began marketing his own Arnold Motor Carriage to the public, a variant on the very Benz he was driving. Whether the whole thing was a publicity stunt or mere coincidence has never been proven.

There you have it. Be reminded that anything outside the norm is subject to criticism within the law. I would not suggest driving so slowly these days, especially on a freeway; you too will get a speeding ticket.

I’m Patrick Ball; thanks for listening; see you in the next episode.

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