Governing driving subjects

When motor cars first appeared on the roads of Britain, their owners and drivers faced draconian restrictions limiting how they could actually drive these vehicles. Under the Locomotive Act of 1865, all road locomotives were restricted to 4 mph in the countryside and 2 mph in urban areas, and there was a requirement that each vehicle be preceded by an attendant carrying either a red flag by day or a red lantern by night. ¹ The new motor cars which were arriving in small numbers from France and Germany in the early 1890s fell subject to a vehicle classification system created three decades earlier, and politicians expressed concern that the use of motor vehicles ‘was practically prohibited in this country’, ² at a time when other nations were adopting a more progressive and liberal stance:

The use of locomotives going at a very fair pace had become common in some countries on the Continent and in America, and it was natural that the subject should have engaged the attention of those who wished to use them and to make them in this country; but they found themselves obstructed by impediments which did not exist elsewhere…. The most serious obstacle … arose from the definition of a locomotive as ‘a locomotive’ propelled by steam or other mechanical power, and the courts had held that the definition was applicable to any vehicle that was not propelled by a man’s legs or drawn by a horse’s…. It was obviously impossible for light locomotives to be manufactured and used under these conditions of the law. Pressure had been brought to bear upon the late Government and the present one, and, therefore, he, as the mouthpiece of the Local Government Board, had introduced this Bill. ³

Supporters felt that the Locomotives on Highways Bill of 1896 could provide a great ‘impetus to English manufacturers’, ⁴ while the new vehicles would aid agricultural production and distribution and may even transform ‘our whole system of conveyance of persons and goods’. ⁵ Critics warned of the damage such heavy motor vehicles would inflict on local roads, ⁶ as well as the apparent ‘nuisance’ caused by such ‘non-sporting machines’ in cities such as Paris, Vienna and Jerusalem, ⁷ but the vast majority of politicians agreed that a change in the law was needed, and the Locomotives on Highways Act came into force on what would become known as ‘Emancipation Day’, 14 November 1896. As the very phrases ‘Emancipation Act’ and ‘Emancipation Day’ suggest, it was not a case of this new technology of mobility – the motor car – falling outside the law, being ungoverned, and requiring legislation to constrain its use. As a road locomotive, the motor car was subject to already-existing, outdated legislation, and it was felt that motorists, motor manufacturers and motor vehicles must be set free. The new Act raised the maximum speed limit to 12 mph, and the majority of politicians felt that a fixed limit was preferable to a reliance on the rather vague categorisation of ‘furious driving’. Under the Highway Act of 1835, policemen could bring a charge of ‘furious driving’ due to the furious manner in which a horse was being ridden or driven ⁸ – evidenced by ‘the amount of exertion a horse was making’ – but these new mechanical motor cars seemed effortless; proceeding ‘as smoothly at one rate as at another’ ⁹ and displaying no physical demonstration or performance of furiousness or exertion. As The Auto-motor and Horseless Vehicle Journal stated in May 1897:

What … is really ‘furious driving’ in the case of a horse and trap, may be a perfectly safe speed in the case of a motor-car, even allowing that the speed is the same in both cases, because once a horse gets up a speed of, say, 12 miles an hour, his natural excitement makes it extremely difficult to check his career; with an automotor the case is widely different – the source of power can be at once shut off and the brakes applied…. Indeed, to apply the adjective ‘furious’ to any mechanically-produced speed is simply absurd. ¹⁰

Motorists, politicians and journalists differed in their opinions about the regulations which should be used to control the movements and conduct of motorists, and while some criticised the laws on furious driving, others preferred these laws to a fixed speed limit. For John Scott-Montagu, speed limits were inappropriate because speed was not a problem per se, rather it was careless, dangerous or furious driving by a minority of motorists which gave motorists a bad name, and he felt that the police and magistrates should realise the preference of prosecuting under the heading of ‘furious driving’ ‘instead of under the universally disregarded and ridiculous twelve-miles-an-hour clause’. ¹¹ As the number of motor cars in the nation increased, police forces started to enforce laws relating to excess speed and furiousness as well as other motoring offences, but differing approaches to policing and prosecution in different areas soon brought accusations that motorists were being victimised and unfairly targeted, while many motorists claimed that the authorities simply didn’t understand the capacities and movements of the motor car.